Examining the Charism of Papal Infalliblility over last 2000 years

[JamalChristophr]

Years back I was fascinated by a series Patrick Madrid hosted called Pope Fiction. In part of the program, he defended the claim made by the Catholic Church that in the last 2000 years the Pope has never once taught error. Are their claims made by non-Catholics that the pope has taught something that was false at some point in Church History? I’m interested in this topic in a broad sense and particularly how it might relate to present day concerns over allowing divorced and remarried persons to receive communion on a case by case basis. I’m not sure whether to make this a broad topic or focus on a specific question. Maybe we can do both. How do you think the Pope’s encyclical Amoris Laeetitia can be viewed in light of the charism of Papal Infallibility that the Pope cannot teach error? Is there any reason to think that the recent papal teachings could possibly violate papal infallibility? I firmly believe in the doctrine of papal infallibility as all Catholics are obliged to believe, but I was just wondering about this.

Can one safely say that even if divorced and remarried couples are permitted to receive communion on a provisional basis that papal infallibility is in no way compromised? (Feel free to correct or edit my question if I represented something incorrectly. This present day issue, as well as the doctrine of papal infallibility, is something of which I’m not particularly knowledgeable. Thanks.

 

[ratio1]

A pope is only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra. I don’t think encyclicals like the one you mentioned would be ex cathedra declarations hence is not infallible.
Example of ex cathedra delclarations would be assumption of Mary which is infallible.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Yes, I seem to recall (correct me if I’m wrong ) that even Humanae Vitae was not considered an “infallible” teaching and many people have used that as a basis to argue in favor of artificial birth control.

The actual group of teachings that are considered infallible is pretty small, and seem to be things that no good Catholic would object to, like the Immaculate Conception.

Is there a list of infallible teachings? | U.S. Catholic