Do Eastern catholics believe in papal infallibility?

[Woodstock]

The law of non-contradiction/singularity of truth requires that Papal Infallilbility cannot be both true and false. Either It is true, and is so for all Catholics or it is false and the Latin Church is in error and has perverted the Apostolic Faith. If it is true then all Catholics must adhere to this teachings. If it is false then it seems that all Catholics should be standing in front of the Vatican protesting this dogma every day. I for one believe that the Latin Church is completely orthodox.

Or you could be misunderstanding it and your interpretation could be pious belief which the Vatican will later correct, amend, and clarify. It is possible they could say the pope may speak infallibly over all Latin bishops and therefore that it is true and binding on all to believe that it places him infallibly over the Latin Church. I’m not wanting to argue that one point as the likely route, but am using it to illustrate that Rome has been known to use development of doctrine not only to develop but to undevelop and rediscover. Your personal interpretation on what the overarching implications of papal infallibility are on the east don’t amount to any more than my own. If it was cut and dry, they wouldn’t have theologians and church men hashing this out. My point is that the result is likely to be far from the absolutes you present.

 

[dvdjs]

The law of non-contradiction/singularity of truth requires that Papal Infallilbility cannot be both true and false.

I think Woodstock’s response is a good one.

But even more simply, application of the law of non-contradiction/singularity of truth requires first that we agree very precisely by what is meant by the term “Papal Infallilbility”. If we have different ideas about what the term means then we may very well disagree without logical contradiction.

Pastor Aeternus is a lovely nuanced document that really excludes both the radical ultramontane and Jack Chick perspectives of the papacy. For example, it rules out autocratic powers such as papal authority to reverse established dogma or to prnounce new revelation. I think that it’s crucial to describe in detail what one means by “Papal Infallilbility”, before it can be answered whether EC’s, or anyone else for that matter, believe in it.

 

[SemperFidelis]

Now, matters like the recent clarification eradicating limbo, that does affect the whole church, and is a matter of doctrine. It is thus most likely infallible.

Wow! First of all the recent “clarification” in no way, shape or form eradicated the teaching on Limbo. Read the document and you’ll figure this out really quickly. It got blown way out of proportion by the Media, and what they claimed was in no way correct. The International Theological Commission does not have the authority of the Magisterium, so there is no way, even if they did “eradicate” Limbo, (and they didn’t) that it would be infallible.

Edit: Nevermind, I just saw there is a post that already addressed this.

 

[East_and_West]

Or you could be misunderstanding it and your interpretation could be pious belief which the Vatican will later correct, amend, and clarify. It is possible they could say the pope may speak infallibly over all Latin bishops and therefore that it is true and binding on all to believe that it places him infallibly over the Latin Church. I’m not wanting to argue that one point as the likely route, but am using it to illustrate that Rome has been known to use development of doctrine not only to develop but to undevelop and rediscover. Your personal interpretation on what the overarching implications of papal infallibility are on the east don’t amount to any more than my own. If it was cut and dry, they wouldn’t have theologians and church men hashing this out. My point is that the result is likely to be far from the absolutes you present.

I think you realize that the Vatican absolutely intended to be absolute when it defined this matter. I am not personally interpreting the matter. A person has to be way off in la la land to not see this.

 

[Woodstock]

I think you realize that the Vatican absolutely intended to be absolute when it defined this matter. I am not personally interpreting the matter. A person has to be way off in la la land to not see this.

I don’t think you realize that the Vatican absolutely does not consider your take on it to be absolute now.

Have you read this? Skip straight to the conclusion. If these learned men are still discussing and asking for guidance, why are you so absolutely sure you know better?

1. It remains for the question of the role of the bishop of Rome in the communion of all the Churches to be studied in greater depth. What is the specific function of the bishop of the “first see” in an ecclesiology of * koinonia *and in view of what we have said on conciliarity and authority in the present text? How should the teaching of the first and second Vatican councils on the universal primacy be understood and lived in the light of the ecclesial practice of the first millennium? These are crucial questions for our dialogue and for our hopes of restoring full communion between us.

1. We, the members of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, are convinced that the above statement on ecclesial communion, conciliarity and authority represents positive and significant progress in our dialogue, and that it provides a firm basis for future discussion of the question of primacy at the universal level in the Church. We are conscious that many difficult questions remain to be clarified, but we hope that, sustained by the prayer of Jesus “That they may all be one … so that the world may believe” (Jn 17, 21), and in obedience to the Holy Spirit, we can build upon the agreement already reached. Reaffirming and confessing “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4, 5), we give glory to God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who has gathered us together.

 

[HailMary]

Yes, Eastern Catholics must believe and assent to the doctrine of Papal Infallibiilty.

 

[mgy100]

The Eucharist/Sacred Mysteries, Body and Blood of Christ unite the church. When we receive we are making a public statement that we affirm the beliefs of the church and accept all of her teachings. By receiving these sacred mysteries we are also shouting “through this cup, I am united through Christ with my brothers and sisters also sharing in this mystical supper.” Throughout the whole church you if you receive the sacred mysteries you are all participating in the one meal, the one Eucharist, the One Christ. The Eucharist that is being partaken in the Latin Church or the Maronite or the Ukrainian Catholic Church is the same Eucharist, from the same Mystical Supper, they are one, Christ is one.
If you do not stand with your brethren and accept the teachings of your mother Church, the sacred laws, the Deposit of Faith and the teachings revealed by the Holy Ghost, then you are not “in communion” with the people also participating in this Mystical Supper.
Therefore when one starts picking and choosing which teachings to follow or belief, then one has separated himself from the whole church.
So is it permissible to have various groups within your church to have varying beliefs and possess the ability to self-determine or self-rewrite how some of the beliefs, canon law/teaching or the church pertain to them?
At this point the word “one” in the formula, “one, holy, Catholic and apostolic faith” is taken out.
So how can someone who claims to be “in communion with Rome” not believe in all the teachings that the Pope holds in his heart?
If he is the universal leader, the Vicar of Christ, the Supreme Pontiff, Representative of Christ on Earth, the man every Catholic should look towards to help him on his spiritual journey, how, may I ask, ANY
Catholic NOT believe everything the Pope believes, which is the canon law and teachings of the church and still be “in communion with the Pope?” By saying you are “in Communion with Rome” means that you accept the Deposit of Faith, the teachings inspired by the Holy Spirit of the Catholic Church, that you are sharing in the Eucharist as one community made of many different diverse ritual practices, but you are all one. Different Rites within the Catholic Church explain the Deposit of Faith in different ways, but the end teaching must agree with the Catholic Church teaching. All one through Jesus Christ, most especially through the Communion, receiving the Body and Blood of Christ, the Eucharist. The Eucharist, Communion you receive at a Roman Catholic Church in Greenland is the same Eucharist, the SAME Jesus you are receiving in a Ukrainian Catholic Church in Sydney.
While different Catholics have different practices, the end means are the same. The end means is being able to share in the Eucharist together, which makes the person One with the whole Church. Some Catholics celebrate Stations of the Cross, some Pre-Sanctified. I’m not saying that everyone has to worship exactly the same, the diversity adds to the strength. But all must believe what the Catholic Church teaches, the Deposit of Faith, which are the common beliefs that EVERY Christian is to hold in their hearts if they are to receive Christ, who unites them all, in the one Eucharist of the Church.
After all, as I said in the beginning, being in Communion means believing what your church teaches and what your brothers and sisters believe.
If you truly are in communion with the Pope, that means you are sharing the same Mystical Supper, the same Eucharist that he partakes in.
To do otherwise places you “out of communion.”
To do otherwise disconnects you from partaking in the unifying Eucharist, Christ, that the whole church partakes in, regardless of Rite, sui juris church, language, or nation. The Eucharist makes the church one, when a person doesn’t agree with the teachings of the church then in effect that bars that person from sharing in the united Eucharist.
Many people realize that sin keeps them from partaking in the Eucharist. Not following or believing in the Church teachings, which are the rules of the community also prohibits a person from sharing in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a communal meal. When you are receiving Communion you are partaking in the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ unites all the believers, and Christ is the Eucharist. While communion is often seen as a private matter, what sins did you commit to prohibit communing and so on, primarily the Eucharist, or Christ, is the binding agent of the church. By partaking in the Holy Mysteries the believers are united. The Mystical Supper that the believers partake, as I said before is the same throughout the Catholic Church. To sit at the table with the believers and participate in this most sacred meal you must believe and accept all that the Church has set forth as her teachings.

 

[mgy100]

yes I am aware of the various approaches different sui juris churches have towards certain teachings of the Church. But the end result is that there is a Deposit of Faith and the end means of varying ways of explanation is to correctly adhere and teach that tenant of the Deposit of Faith that is being taught.

 

[Woodstock]

So how can someone who claims to be “in communion with Rome” not believe in all the teachings that the Pope holds in his heart?

No one is disputing that there is one faith. What is being discussed is just what it is the Church believes and which things it is silent on and which things men have offered their suggestions which have later become intertwined with fact.

With that said, I know of some popes who believed it was OK to have multiple mistresses and to be fathering children during their papacy. Thankfully, I am in communion with the office, not the man.

 

[mgy100]

No one is disputing that there is one faith. What is being discussed is just what it is the Church believes and which things it is silent on and which things men have offered their suggestions which have later become intertwined with fact.

With that said, I know of some popes who believed it was OK to have multiple mistresses and to be fathering children during their papacy. Thankfully, I am in communion with the office, not the man.

Well, “with Rome, or the Pope, or the Vatican, or the Church”
All referring to one idea, not the human man, but the teachings, the deposit of faith.
As stated above, it is fine to have various methods of carrying out an official teaching, or a tenant of the Deposit of Faith of the Church.
Simply, you can’t deviate from any tenant of the Deposit of Faith the Church is built on. If you do, then you have removed yourself from your seat at the Mystical Supper so to speak.

It is evident no one is saying “the man” obviously. The message is communion. The point is to be in communion means upholding everything your church teaches. The Vatican, Pope, Magisterium, Rome… all bring to “the Church” and it is where the Pontiff usually resides. It’s like splitting hairs, obviously my point is clear. The Pope is to be a guide mark as the visible leader of the Catholic Church on Earth. Regardless of what some popes have done in the past etc… the Pope is to be the Visible Leader of the Church etc…and the notion of his duties, whether a particular pope meets someone’s criteria, are still ideals of the highest leadership and most visible member of the Church, so regardless, the pope is still a large focus. But still, to remain in communion means you have to hold true to the teachings and laws of the church.

 

[peregrinus_sg]

The doctrine that the Bishop of Rome personally possesses the charism of infallability which he can freely exercise is a defined doctrine of the Catholic Church and is therefore binding for all Christians. I find the idea that excludes the possibility of an ecumenical council once schism has happened to be extremely silly: the Devil would clearly have had the upper hand since the first days of the Church! At the end of the day, unacceptance of the doctrine taught at Vatican I boils down to pride and selfishness, the cause of the fail of the angels themselves.

However, how the Bishop of Rome exercises that charism is something that is outside the doctrine of faith and is therefore open to debate. This is what Pope John Paul II, in his encyclical Ut Unum Sint, requested the Eastern Christians to enter into dialogue and discussion with. This is also what the dialogue document, quoted by Woodstock, between the Catholics and Orthdox drives at.

So a Catholic must accept the doctrine of papal infallability as enunciated by the Church, but how that charism should be exercised remains open to dialogue. It’s just like a Catholic must accept that the Church can teach infallably in ecumenical councils, but whether ecumenical councils are a waste of time and resources is totally up for grabs.

In any case, the dialogue document has absolutely zero doctrinal authority in either the Catholic Church nor the Orthdox Churches. It would be better to refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church which the Pope promulgated as a sure text of reference for both the Eastern and Latin Churches.

 

[Ghosty]

It is possible they could say the pope may speak infallibly over all Latin bishops and therefore that it is true and binding on all to believe that it places him infallibly over the Latin Church.

This is an impossibility, not because of there being no chance of the Vatican saying so, but because it’s literally impossible for something to be infallible (without error) for one person or group, and not another. Either two plus two is infallibly four, or it’s not; it can’t be four for Latins and five for Byzantines. Therefore if the Pope infallibly declared that there is a Purgatory to Latins, then that statement is without error in general and Purgatory is a reality, period, full stop.

Facts and Truth aren’t relative, so there’s no way to constrain them to a single group of people. This isn’t a matter of Vatican decree, but basic logic. Remember, infallible doesn’t mean “binding”, it means “factual and without error”, and a fact is fact no matter who you are.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Woodstock]

This is an impossibility, not because of there being no chance of the Vatican saying so, but because it’s literally impossible for something to be infallible (without error) for one person or group, and not another. Either two plus two is infallibly four, or it’s not; it can’t be four for Latins and five for Byzantines. Therefore if the Pope infallibly declared that there is a Purgatory to Latins, then that statement is without error in general and Purgatory is a reality, period, full stop.

Facts and Truth aren’t relative, so there’s no way to constrain them to a single group of people. This isn’t a matter of Vatican decree, but basic logic. Remember, infallible doesn’t mean “binding”, it means “factual and without error”, and a fact is fact no matter who you are.

Peace and God bless!

That fact is fact does not mean that your or my or his understanding of the fact is fact.

I’ve forgotten when the next Orthodox/Catholic ecumenical dialogue is scheduled when Rome is likely to address this issue. Does anyone remember when it is?

 

[Ghosty]

That fact is fact does not mean that your or my or his understanding of the fact is fact.

I’ve forgotten when the next Orthodox/Catholic ecumenical dialogue is scheduled when Rome is likely to address this issue. Does anyone remember when it is?

The different theological approaches to a Truth don’t relate to Papal Infallibility, however, so I don’t really see the connection. If the Pope affirms that “there is a Purgatory”, he’s not forcing the Latin theological formulas on the East, but he is infallibly asserting that there is a setting after death were we are detached from our unGodly connections from this life and made whole. The trappings of this Truth (temporal punishment or theosis or the burning Love of God scalding away impurities) are going to differ among the various traditions.

Peace and God bless!

 

[jimmy]

The different theological approaches to a Truth don’t relate to Papal Infallibility, however, so I don’t really see the connection. If the Pope affirms that “there is a Purgatory”, he’s not forcing the Latin theological formulas on the East, but he is infallibly asserting that there is a setting after death were we are detached from our unGodly connections from this life and made whole. The trappings of this Truth (temporal punishment or theosis or the burning Love of God scalding away impurities) are going to differ among the various traditions.

Peace and God bless!

But it does force Latin theological constructs on the east. Many easterners profess that hell is the cleansing place. For example, Mark of Ephesus believed this. They don’t necessarily declare that those who are being cleansed are gauranteed to enter heaven as the west does. Every time the west declares a dogma according to Latin theology they cut out certain aspects of eastern thought if you want to maintain that they are relevant across the whole Church. It is the eastern view which suffers because it isn’t even considered. The west declares dogmas which mean the east can not profess certain things which they always have professed atleast on a large scale.

 

[Ghosty]

Many easterners profess that hell is the cleansing place. For example, Mark of Ephesus believed this.

This is an acceptable approach to Purgatory, so long as Hell is understood to be more than merely “the place where the Damned dwell”, as is the case in many Latin circles. In fact, the Catechism of Trent explicitely said that Purgatory was an aspect of Hell:

"Different Abodes Called Hell"

These abodes are not all of the same nature, for among them is that most loathsome and dark prison in which the souls of the damned are tormented with the unclean spirits in eternal and inextinguishable fire. This place is called gehenna, the bottomless pit, and is hell strictly so called.

Among them is also the fire of purgatory, in which the souls of just men are cleansed by a temporary punishment, in order to be admitted into their eternal country, into which nothing defiled entereth.

It is NOT an Eastern tradition to deny such cleansing, however, as the Fathers make it very clear that a cleansing does occur.

Again, I think you’re getting too caught up in the trappings of the teaching rather than the core of it. Nothing of Eastern thought has been limited.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

But it does force Latin theological constructs on the east. Many easterners profess that hell is the cleansing place. For example, Mark of Ephesus believed this. They don’t necessarily declare that those who are being cleansed are gauranteed to enter heaven as the west does. Every time the west declares a dogma according to Latin theology they cut out certain aspects of eastern thought if you want to maintain that they are relevant across the whole Church. It is the eastern view which suffers because it isn’t even considered. The west declares dogmas which mean the east can not profess certain things which they always have professed atleast on a large scale.

If a council or pope infallibly declares something in Western terms which then makes an Eastern formulation untenable, that hardly seems unfair or coercive; after all, if the truth makes your position untenable, there was no saving it to begin with. I think we should also be reasonable when examining the complaint of Western “dominance” of the Catholic Church. Easterners of all churches make up less than 2% of the Catholic Church. It would be extremely hard to give each church an equal voice in such an environment, so while we need to try to respect all legitimate theologies it seems almost inevitable that the majority of the Church will naturally think like the Latins they are.

 

[Woodstock]

If a council or pope infallibly declares something in Western terms which then makes an Eastern formulation untenable, that hardly seems unfair or coercive; after all, if the truth makes your position untenable, there was no saving it to begin with. I think we should also be reasonable when examining the complaint of Western “dominance” of the Catholic Church. Easterners of all churches make up less than 2% of the Catholic Church. It would be extremely hard to give each church an equal voice in such an environment, so while we need to try to respect all legitimate theologies it seems almost inevitable that the majority of the Church will naturally think like the Latins they are.

That makes no sense.

If we use western terms that makes eastern terms untenable, it means you were wrong anyway and need to adopt the western terms. Yeah, you are our equal and all that, but you don’t have the numbers to do anything about it so you’re just going to have to accept the western ways.
If the east and west are equal and equally hold the Truth, then the western terms shouldn’t create a situation where they cannot be reconciled with the equally valid expression of Truth in the East.

 

[East_and_West]

That makes no sense.

If we use western terms that makes eastern terms untenable, it means you were wrong anyway and need to adopt the western terms. Yeah, you are our equal and all that, but you don’t have the numbers to do anything about it so you’re just going to have to accept the western ways.
If the east and west are equal and equally hold the Truth, then the western terms shouldn’t create a situation where they cannot be reconciled with the equally valid expression of Truth in the East.

The was a time when there were, for the most part, no Eastern Churches were in communion with the Catholic Church. Yet, during this time, the Catholics Chruch continued to teach through Ecumenical Councils as she always had. She did not lose her voice simply because some groups were not at that time part of the Catholic Church. That being said, the Church taught things during that time that the East missed out on. Now that some of the East is back in the Catholic Church they should submitt to the voice of the Church, the voice she never lost.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

That makes no sense.

If the east and west are equal and equally hold the Truth, then the western terms shouldn’t create a situation where they cannot be reconciled with the equally valid expression of Truth in the East.

You’re missing the point. It’s not that if there are two competing theological positions of solid yet fallible orthodoxy we should try to artifically push one out. But I was talking about infallible statements. If a statement that is indubitably correct is irreconcilable with another position, then that other position is not correct - it’s the law of non-contradiction. So what makes no sense is to say that the West should not teach the truth because the truth would force the East to abandon its position. It’s just as ridiculous to say the Church should never define anything in Eastern terms (and let’s not forget that for the first several ecumenical councils the entire West was basically represented by two Roman deacons) if this would compel Westerners to abandon a false notion. The bottom line is that if something is true and I can’t square my beliefs with that truth, then the problem is mine, not the person’s who spoke the truth.