Hope this is in the right section: A friend of mine and I are getting into a friendly debate. She gave me a list she got from a friend of “contradictions” popes have made with themselves and others. I’m young and never heard of any of these, but I know like the apparent contradictions found by atheists in the Bible, they are easily answerable and refutable. Can you help me do that? Here’s the list:
- Pope Victor in 192 first approved of Montanism and then condemned it.
- Marcellinus was an idolator; he entered the Temple of Vesta and offered incense to the goddess.
- Paschal II and Eugenius III authorized dueling. Julius II and Pius IV forbid it.
- Eugenius VI approved the Council of Basel and the reinstitution of the chalice of the Church of Bohemia. Pius II revoked the concession.
- Hadrian II declared civil marriages to be valid, Pius VII condemned them
- The dogma of the Assumption of Mary, officially declared on November 1, 1950, was rejected as heresy by Pope Gelasius in 495 , Not even one hundred years after that, Pope Hormisdas condemned as heretics any authors that taught the doctrine of the Assumption of Mary. Hormisdas was condemned as a heretic himself around a hundred years after that at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680-681)
Can any of you help me refute these?
They’re fair questions for one discerning the faith. If she is challenging you on them, I would tell her you don’t know anything about it, but that your faith is not dependent upon any answer, good or bad, to those questions so you could care less. You already have experienced a personal faith in Jesus, and if she is going to try to take that away from you then you need to find other friends. Alternatively, if she is not challenging you, but making friendly inquiries there is good reason to look at the contradictions (her term).
1. Pope Victor and Monatanism.. Tertullian, a great Catholic apologist at the time, turned heretic wrote about an unnamed “bishop of Rome” probably Pope Victor who accepted then rejected the Monatanist prophecies. This is thin, and it’s the best my research gives. First, some might doubt the source. Second, the attribution to a bishop of Rome is still somewhat shaky. Next, it was never proclaimed dogmatically to be true - if so, document? source? A pope is allowed his private belief. It is publically condemed.
2. Pope Marcellinus the Idolater. He was forced to go through the motions and offer sacrfice under threat of his life. The church teaches that one can do this licitly for grave reason (saving your life) as long as you are not doing it with your will. The church, however, honors all the more those brave martyrs who chose rather to give up their lives than to do something that might lead others astray. Furthermore, Marcellinus repented and chose martyrdom soon afterwards anyway.
3. Dueling. Even if a pope had spoken on this subject, it is not a matter of faith and morals, so no infallible teaching can be made about it. Therefore, this could never present a problem to the faith so I’m not even going to research it. Popes can bind and loose as they choose. They’ve done the same with other things like games of chance or incineration of the dead.
4. Eugenius VI and the Council of Basel. Yeah, he approved it to meet, but the Council became schismatic and actually deposed the pope (as if it had that authority) and elected an anti-pope. Obviously, these actions could never be construed as the Church. Simply good or bad men doing bad things. Just because your a bishop or even a pope, doesn’t mean you can’t sin. In medieval times, if memory serves, there were popes who likely committed murder and who likely had intimacies during their pontificate. Certainly one pope was succeeded by his son. Recognizing that bad people sometimes led the church does not disprove the authority of the Church, however.
5. Civil Marriage. My research doesn’t find any sources on their takes on civil marriage. By itself, the topic is not one of faith and morals, and as such can be treated as the fencing case above. It’s just an act of the state to regulate certain laws dealing with the citizenry and is useful for archival/census purposes as well. Now, if it’s a matter as to whether a Christian can use civil marriage as a substitute for Christian marriage, that is a matter of faith and morals, but you would have to see both documents first. My faith tells me that if these documents are produced there will be nothing that goes against church teaching in them.
6. Dogma of the Assumption - Origins. Again, ask for proofs of this one. There is a Decretum Gelasianum that is attributed to Pope Saint Gelasius that has been proven to be false and written in the next century. Maybe your friend refers to something in that text. Pope Hormisdas is also a saint so he could hardly be deemed a heretic. Your friend has a lot of explaining to do on this one. Your friend would have to prove that it was the fullness of the doctrine that was condemned (not something like the condemnation of the celebration), and that it was clearly condemned by an official teaching document.
I hope this helps - all glory to Jesus! Amen!
