Exaggerating papal infallibility

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That verse is all that keeps me going sometimes :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:
Why I am content to be a child, since I am no scholar, and have faith in Christ and His church.
 
Dovekin said:
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peter26:
What I mean is this. Take at random any statement made by the Pope. Tell me if it is or is not infallable. You probably won’t be able to tell. Ask ten different people for their view, and you will get ten different answers.
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There is a legal standard:
Canon 749. §3. No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly unless this is manifestly evident.
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The problem is, Canon Law is just laws, not anything infallible (as shown by the fact it’s been changed repeatedly). This statement wasn’t made at at council, as far as I am aware. The unfortunate fact does appear that the dogmatic declaration of papal infallibility has caused more confusion about the subject than existed beforehand.

I’m a bit confused as to why it was defined, honestly. If it was to confirm the pope’s declaration of the Immaculate Conception, they easily could have just directly affirmed it at the council itself. Am I missing something?
 
This person always blames US Catholics for pretty much anything. Has a chip on their shoulder, I think.
 
Definitely no chip here. I believe that the US has the reins of the world and despite some inevitable missteps, has been a good guardian of western values and global peace.

Despite Maximian ‘remembering’ great debate over infalliblity among the public, it has never been a big issue outside the US. It was not the case that ‘conservatives’ jumped up ascribing infallibility to Pope John Paul II. From the beginning of his papacy he was already regarded suspiciously by them for ecumenism and commitment to religious liberty. Then there was the World Day of Prayer with all manner of faiths. Then of course the kissing of the Quran incident. Sedevacantism ‘flourished’ during his pontificate because of ‘conservative’ doubt. It was only later in his reign and after his death that conservatives claimed him.

It’s just reality that the obsession infallibility is very much a US phenomenon.
 
I am 58 years old. I have there has been 5 popes in my life time that I can remember and recall. One when I was two so I am not counting him. I have thru all of those five had the exact time belief of infallibility. The Pope is infallible only in Ex cathera. That has only happen twice in the history of the church. Now if can be argued that it has happen much more often, but my point is I have never believed the pope is always infallible. I had the same belief with JPII and Benedict as I do with Francis.
 
Maximian said:
I can remember a time when Protestants would criticise Catholicism for believing that the Pope was always infallible. One would resist the temptation to roll one’s eyes, and then very patiently explain that no, that is not the doctrine of Papal infallibility.

Then came a conservative Pope and I noticed that some conservatives started talking as if this protestant caricature were actually correct.

After that we had Pope Francis, and conservatives started backpedaling furiously, while liberals started singing the infallibility tune.

And lately, now that the Pope has distanced himself from the Amazon Synod document and from Father Martin, I notice yet another change in opinion about papal infallibility.

And all this time, the doctrine is what it always has been. The Pope is mostly fallible except in very rare circumstances.

Is it too much to hope that both sides will stop trimming the infallibility concept to suit themselves? It is intellectually and spiritually dishonest to do so.
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There are not two differing yet somehow morally equivalent “sides” in the GOSPEL or CHURCH.

Infallibility is indeed limited… and the pope can indeed be fallible…
 
tafan2 said:
theologians and such may be able to debate such matters, but we ordinary Catholics are to follow the teaching even if we are not sure we understand or even agree with it.
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This is not really accurate. Individuals are often confronted with issues that they have to decide where papal teaching has to be assessed rather than followed blindly. The Mothers of the Plaza in Argentina were forced to consider whether the death penalty is legitimate not because they understood moral philosophy, but because their children were being killed by the state. Their courageous vigils took a stand for the intrinsic dignity of the human person and so against capital punishment being a legitimate choice. If ordinary people do not search for the truth, philosophers are not likely to find it either.

Papal teaching is a guide we must respect, but sometimes we confront situations that call for a deeper reflection. A mother’s love is a better testimony to God’s love. Fidelity to a shared love may be more important than adhering to a judicial decision about a prior marriage. Theologians can debate, but we must live the lives and make the choices.
 
There’s good and bad theologians…

Those who are in line with GOD … And those who aren’t…

_
 
Dovekin said:
Yves Congar op, a great theologian from the Council, coined the term “creeping infallibility” to describe the tendency to include more as infallible than Vatican I defined. Before he was Pope, Benedict XVI essentially added a whole new category of Church statements to the list of infallible doctrines, so this concern had a real basis in reality.
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No, Pope Benedict didn’t “add” anything. In that era some there was creeping minimalism, an effort to impose relativism. The pope needed to restore things.
 
I think the best way to think about this topic is to understand papal infallibility as a necessary consequence of the permanence of the primacy in the Church. The particular church in primacy (the Church of Rome–the Apostolic See) cannot be separated from the universal Church nor the universal Church from it. The universal Church therefore must hold the same faith as the Church of Rome.

Should the Church of Rome require an error to be believed in order to have communion with it, either the Church of Rome would defect from the universal Church or the entire Church would defect into error following Rome–and both things are impossible.

Therefore, in as much as the bishop of Rome–the authorized teacher of the Church of Rome–provides a judgment as to a doctrine that must be held in order for all to maintain communion in the Church, it must be true, otherwise it would lead to one of the two impossible conditions above.

Popes do and say tons of stuff that has no consequence on communion in the Church. That being said, despite the myth that they have only done so twice, they have often definitively judged what must be believed or held in order to maintain communion in the Church.
 
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Maximian said:
Is it too much to hope that both sides will stop trimming the infallibility concept to suit themselves?
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It is too much to hope for. There will always be those who seek to distort the doctrine to suit themselves.
 
Yeah, Congar had an agenda. The First Vatican Council’s definition using the phrase “doctrine’s to be held” shows those necessarily connected doctrines are included rather than only those that must be believed with divine faith, likewise it saying the pope’s infallibility extended as far as the Church’s. The official explanatory relatio from the Deputatio de Fide at Vatican I made this even clearer to the voting bishops. So does Vatican II extending it to the Pope “expounding and defending.”
 
Dovekin said:
Before he was Pope, Benedict XVI essentially added a whole new category of Church statements to the list of infallible doctrines, so this concern had a real basis in reality.
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Can you show us what this catogory us, and perhaps some examples?
 

This article distinguishes ex cathedra teaching from infallible teaching, ie there are infallible teachings that do not fit the definition of ex cathedra teaching from Vatican I.

The way I understand it, is that at Vatican I they defined an extraordinary infallibility, but affirmed that under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church teaches infallibly in other situations. Those other situations are not described.

With Ad Tuendam Fidem John Paul II changed the profession of faith to include an affirmation of he ex cathedra teaching as described at Vatican I; a second category of teachings related to to the faith by reason or history that must be held wih as definitive an assent as in the first category; and three, other things the Church teaches which demand a religious submission. Cardinal Ratzinger wrote a commentary on Ad Tuendam Fidem explaining this with examples, which is why I cited Benedict XVI instead of JP2 who really is behind the change.

Before ATF there were two categories, ex cathedra and other unspecified doctrine. After ATF there are three categories, ex cathedra, definitive, and other unspecified doctrine. So ATF added a new category of infallible teaching to canon law. Those doctrines had been unspecified infallible teachings before, and now were defined as specificly infallible doctrines.

I could be wrong in how I understand it. But I think this new category is a sign of what Congar called creeping infallibility, as is the behavior in the OP. I am not saying here is anything wrong with the new category, just that it specifies more of what can be considered infallible.
 
ThomasMT said:
I’m still struggling for an answer to one question… what if the pope renders something decreed as infallible, but it contradicts something that was already infallible?
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That would be impossible.
 
Dovekin said:
This article distinguishes ex cathedra teaching from infallible teaching, ie there are infallible teachings that do not fit the definition of ex cathedra teaching from Vatican I.
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This is true… however - it’s still somewhat limited in extent…

I. Divinely Revealed Doctrines contained in the Word of God, written or handed down, and defined with a solemn judgment of the Church as divinely revealed truths by any of the following:

a) the Roman Pontiff speaking ex cathedra
b) the College of Bishops gathered in council
c) infallibly proposed by the ordinary and universal Magisterium

EXAMPLES ·the articles of faith of the Creed ·the various Christological dogmas ·the various Marian dogmas ·the doctrine of the institution of the sacraments by Christ and their efficacy with regard to grace ·the doctrine of the real and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist ·the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic celebration ·the foundation of the Church by the will of Christ ·the doctrine on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff ·the doctrine on the existence of original sin ·the doctrine on the immortality of the spiritual soul ·the immediate recompense after death ·the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts ·the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.

THAT SAID - Yes… a pope can be fallible -

)
 
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