Can saints teach error?

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MysticMissMisty

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Hello.

First, I’m not exactly sure if this is the proper place in which to post this thread, so, forgive me if it is not.

Can saints teach error, even if they don’t realize it as error at the time, either minor or major, either involving moral or other concerns? IF so, how can they be said to have made it to Heaven immediately upon their deaths? Has there ever been a saint’s teachings condemned either before or after his/her canonization, even if those evalualting him/her realized he/she did not realize the error at the time?

If a saint is capable of teaching error and still being canonized, what about the need to suffer the consequences of any sinful teaching they might have given, whether they knew it at the time or not? Would that not by necessity require time of Purgatory which would, therefore, negate the necessary immediate entrance into Heaven required for canonization?

Related to this question is: Can one disagree, with respect and careful consideration, about some teaching of a particular saint? Over on another thread, I was talking about the fact that St. John Bosco and others taught against corporal punishment, yet there are many Catholics who would support it to various degrees. Therefore, they would have to argue that these saints taught in error about corporal punishment, because they stated that it shouldn’t be used.

Thanks for any clarification on this issue.
 
Unpopular opinion, but St. Pope John Paul II has some questionable actions and teachings. As well as St. Pope Paul VI.
 
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To pile on your statement, conversely, there are also some who are called heretics who taught faithful doctrine on important subjects. We all have doctrinal blind spots and I don’t think there is anyone in Church history who can be said to have gotten their doctrine 100% right.
 
Origen definitely comes to mind on that point. Excellent scriptural scholar with some heretical opinions.
 
Bonaventurian said:
Origen definitely comes to mind on that point. Excellent scriptural scholar with some heretical opinions.
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Yeah, he had some bizarre ideas even if he was a staunch opponent of the gnostics. Tertullian is another. His work to define the Trinity in opposition to the modalists was essential to the development of Nicene Christianity, yet he was a Montanist. Novatian, also in that same camp as a doctor of the faith, essentially leaned toward the Donatists.
 
If by Saint you mean anybody who is in Heaven, it’s possible that people who didn’t know any better taught wrong things and then died before they learned what was correct.
 
There are many saints whose teachings or thoughts on a matter conflicted with those of other saints, or with the position eventually officially endorsed by the Church. Some of the examples I can think of are St. Bridget of Sweden’s alleged private revelations on marital sexuality, St. Thomas Aquinas’ thoughts on when life began (not at conception according to him), and St. Thomas More’s treatment of the mentally less abled and of heretics.

I believe it was Pope John Paul II who observed that saints are human, they are not perfect, and they can make mistakes. I further think that it’s more likely for the person to become a saint if their wrong opinions concern some kind of moral teaching, on which they might have the prevailing opinion of their time, than if their wrong opinions involve Church dogmas, as with Origen.

If the saint’s wrong opinion was taught by the saint in good faith, it’s hard for me to see how this would be a sin deserving of Purgatory. Nevertheless it is possible that saints do spend Purgatory time, perhaps for their other faults on earth and not for wrong teachings. I’m not sure why you think it’s necessary for a saint to have “immediate entrance into Heaven”? We here on earth, including the canonization experts at the Vatican, have no idea if saints might go through Purgatory on their way to Heaven, even if it’s only 30 seconds of earthly time they spend in Purgatory, and saints are not canonized immediately upon death anyway - it has always taken a significant amount of time. All canonization says is that the person is definitely in Heaven after living a life of heroic virtue and/or dying a martyr’s death. It doesn’t say they had no purgatory.
 
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@Tis_Bearself would you be able to give more detail about St Thomas More’s treatment of disabled people? Googling hasn’t brought much up as there are so many schools and churches named after him! Thanks
 
More was accused during his lifetime of persecuting heretics and in response wrote “The Apology of Sir Thomas More, Knight” in 1533. In the book, in Chapter 36, More says that he only ever punished two heretics. One was a child servant in his household whose father was involved with some Protestant group led by a priest who had left the church and gotten married and also taken two nuns from a convent for some sort of relationship or sexual purpose. This child servant learned some unspecified heresy regarding the Eucharist, taught it to another child in the house, and as a result Thomas More had the child servant beaten for spreading the heresy. This was pretty much the way any seriously disobedient child would have been treated in the culture of that time.

The other one that More had punished was a man who had some sort of a mental feebleness or disorder and had been in the local asylum (Bedlam) but had recently been let out. Sources that analyze the Apology usually portray the man as “feebleminded” or intellectually disabled, but it sounds like he may have had some mental disorder beyond just low IQ. More wrote that he would come to Mass and disrupt it, especially during the silent parts, and also that he would go up behind women who were kneeling in prayer and try to flip their skirts up over their head. More had this man tied to a tree and beaten. I would imagine that everybody was pretty sick of the man’s antics and didn’t really have a problem with More doing this, but again if we view it in terms of our own culture, obviously the man needed mental treatment or better supervision and beating would be considered cruel.

More uses these two examples in an “Apology” which means he is trying to show that he is actually a good, normal, upright guy, like who in society wouldn’t beat a disobedient child servant or a mental case who yelled during Mass and molested women who were praying there. I believe Pope JPII said something about More’s behavior towards “heretics” as being in keeping with the culture of his time. Also, at this point even the Anglicans commemorate More (and Fisher) as martyrs. So he can’t have been that awful of a guy. Nevertheless, today we don’t beat kids (or have them working as servants in our homes) or beat the mentally ill. If a man were trying to look under women’s skirts at Mass we would call the police and have them deal with it.
 
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