The only connection between bad popes and the topic of the thread is that none of them promulgated false doctrine. The fact that the Church survived that black period in her history, and recovered, and reformed herself, and flourished, and produced many saints is the answer to such a “challenge.” Only the Holy Spirit could have brought the Church through such political, religious, moral and intellectual turmoil.
That pretty well sums of one of the potential answers to the challenge! Another is that it is the whole doctrine of the Church that gets preserved, and that weight is such to serve as a counterbalance any brief forays into error by particular individuals. These are not mutually exclusive answers to that challenge by any means. Each of them, however, is more complicated than just “we’ve got the Church”.
Of course. In the real world this is true. On CAF, however, we get crackpots all the time trying to tell us that ALL you need is “me-and-my-Bible-and-the-Holy Spirit” and everything will be clear.
Sure, and you get crackpots who claim that everything will be clear if you just listen to what your bishop really says. Or read the catechism. Or read the canon laws.
I don’t really mind all of that. I think it’s part of normal intellectual development to realize that your tradition is more complicated than you first thought when you started defending it. I confess it’s substantially more annoying to hear someone claim that traditions other than their own are only very simplistic, easily destroyed by a clever barb or two. I really shouldn’t be annoyed, though. That too is part of the intellectual development of any apologist.
Since the Great Commission was to the Eleven and thereby to the Church, it is not “too simplistic” to say, “we have the Church”
Good, “the Eleven.” I see you are not new to this sort of discourse. Yet many people would take your phrase “we have the Church” to mean a highly simplistic version of how hierarchical authority interacts with tradition. Now that I know you’ve got a more technical grasp of the subject, I can mentally tack on to that phrase the understanding that you mean a great deal more than “whatever any bishop says about anything under any circumstances.”
Official promulgations of doctrine? Who would the popes be who have been ‘corrected’ for promulgating incorrect doctrine?
Thank you for proving my point. That’s the reason I specifically used the word “teaching” and not “official promulgation of doctrine.” It’s already no longer just “we have the Church” but specifically “doctrines”. And not just anything anybody calls doctrine, it has to be “officially promulgated.”
The example I was vaguely thinking of: I can’t remember which medieval bishop of Rome it was who backed off of a particular teaching when the cardinals told him “hey buddy that doesn’t fit with tradition at all.” It was an opinion, and he backed off. The example has never been important to me. I’m quite aware that the Vatican-led church doesn’t consider every statement of personal opinion of every bishop of Rome to be an
ex cathedra statement. The system is, as I say, a bit more complicated. It can’t be knocked over by intellectual feathers any more than
sola scriptura.
