No I never claimed she was and neither is the Pope. You are talking apples and oranges here my friend. We were speaking of the Holy Spirit communicating through someone infallibly.
Why do Roman Catholics always throw out Martin Luther to try a prove a bogus point:shrug:
Where in scripture does he state that specifically? Validly ordained successors that is.
Yes one body guided by the Spirit. Not one PERSON guided by the Spirit:dts:
Yes and your point is???:coffeeread:
Which accepted most if not all of the statements proposed by that defrocked German monk. Did you know that:yup:
And JP was right. The pope is not infallible. No one is.
And… What does that have to do with the Pope.
Wow I never saw this before.:doh2: What’s your point??
Economics? Can you elaborate here??
The point is that the pope is not merely a private individual when he exercises his divine office in the public and official capacity of shepherd of the Church. Our Lord said to our first pope, St. Peter: “Feed my sheep.” When the pontiff teaches in his private capacity as a theologian or pastor, Bishop of Rome, he is not graced with the charism of infallibilty. You are the one who is comparing apples with oranges by refferring to your wife’s private reflections and comparing them with doctrinal decisions reached by the Pope with or without the College of Bishops. The question of infallibilty arises only in connection with the doctrinal authority of the Church. The Church is infallible in her objective, as opposed to subjective, definite teachings on faith and morals. Individual believers, as Martin Luther was once counted among, are fallible in their subjective understanding of Church teaching and are prone to err, for they do not have Divine assistance and protection to reach a definitive and final conclusion on their own in an authoritative public capacity.
Catholics throw in Martin Luther - who opened Pandora’s box - to show what happens when the infallible Apostolic teaching authority is substituted for fallible private judgment on the part of individual theolgians: a disunity of faith. Protestantism is divided because it is grounded on pure rationalism. Since the enterprise of Luther, Protestant leaders have maintained that established doctrines are potentially erroneous and thus there is room for revision and correction. Fragmentation of a religious movement must necessarily result in like manner of a purely secular ideological movement. Unity of faith was intended by Christ to be one of the distinctive marks of His Church. The Apostolic teaching authority He established for all time, even until the end of the age, serves to effectively maintain this unity our Lord wishes by His divine guidance and assistance. The consequential division of rationalistic Protestantism proves that nothing less than a divinely appointed infallible public authority (The Magisterium) is capable of acting decisively when there is need to pronounce an absolutely final and irreformable judgment for the purpose of teaching the Gospel to all nations and preserving a unity of faith as intended by Christ when he commissioned his Apostles, who in turn appointed and commissioned their successors: the Church hierarchy that must last until the end of time (Mt 28:18-20). Without Church infallibilty there could be no finality and definitiveness with regard to our essential doctrines: The Trinity, Incarnation, Hypostatic Union, or Immaculate Conception. The Church could not even legitimately argue against the major heresies which have challenged her: Sabellianism, Arianism, Nestorianism, or Protestantism - the fruits of fallible private individuals like yourself.
So Protestantism fails to fit the bill; it is not one body guided by one Spirit. And the 254 dogmas and 114 doctrines of the Church are not the private inventions of a solitary private individual. In all the Church has had 265 popes since St. Peter. By Divine assistance and immune to error the Vicar of Christ, in his official public capacity, has definitively declared Church doctrines to be true revelations from God to His Church. If not, how can we be sure that the Jews and Muslims aren’t right in their rejection of the concepts of the Holy Trinity and the Hypostatic Union?
The scriptures aren’t explicit on these Church dogmas. You couldn’t even appeal to the canon of Holy Scripture if not for the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church. Maybe the Gospel of Matthew is not really divinely inspired, but the Protoevangelium of James is.
Only the truly Catholic proposals of Martin Luther were recognized. The Council of Trent condemned him as a positive heretic, no different than Sabellius, Arius, or Nestorious.
You fail to see a lot of things contained in our Holy Book. But that’s because you spent four years stydying it in a Protestant seminary. The point is Christ granted primacy to Peter above the rest of the Apostles. He alone perceived, by the grace of God, that Jesus was the Son of the living God. Peter’s singular declaration was infallible. “Flesh and blood” did not reveal this truth to him. That’s what Pope John XXlll, not JP, meant when he said: “I (as a private individual) never speak infallibly.” He was never called upon by our Lord to make an ‘ex cathedra’ utterance. But he confirmed the brethren in their faith in the spirit of St. Peter.
Protestantism is like lassaize-faire capitalism in that it is driven by the spirit of rationalistic individualism and free enterprise to the detriment of collective society. Christ’s sheep have been scattered.
Have fun splicing this post.
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
