If it is scandal, it is scandal that every Pope from year dot has been guilty of. Didn’t St Peter himself cause scandal by refusing to eat with Gentiles or some such?
Right—there are always examples of scandal, even by Popes. And every act of scandal is WRONG. That doesn’t make current acts of scandal excusable.
St. Peter refused to eat with the Gentiles and this caused scandal, and so
he was rebuked by St. Paul.
Yes, the Pope was rebuked by one of the other “Bishops.” And the rebuke was righteous.
There is an excellent explanation of this scandal at the link at the bottom of this post. (I put some quotes here that support what I am saying. I did not quote the whole article for brevity’s sake, but not in an attempt to deceive. Please follow the link for the full context.)
From the article:
But there are three times we must disobey our superiors: 1) When they go against their superiors. 2) When they tell us to sin. 3) When they try to force us to do or believe things which go against the truth, especially dogmas of the Faith.
This is because God comes first. No superior was given his authority to force us to lose our souls. Our Lord says, “If the blind lead the blind, BOTH fall into the pit.” (Mt. 15:14) We are not excused for obeying our leaders into sin or heresy.
…
But the Pope is Jesus’ representative; he is not Jesus Himself. He makes mistakes. St. Peter made a mistake that scandalized souls, and St. Paul was duty-bound to correct him. How can I say that? The Faith was defined. St. Peter’s actions went against the defined dogma of the Church. In those rare instances, the Faith comes first. It was St. Paul who said that obedience comes from faith, and not the other way around (Rom. 1:5), and it was also he who said that even if an Apostle or an Angel were to preach contrary to the Faith, the Faith comes first (Gal 1:8).
http://www.ewtn.com/v/experts/showmessage_print.asp?number=428680&language=en
I need to add this as well, from the same article: still we are to respect and love the Holy Father.
Quote from above link (I added the bold):
The Church has never said that the Pope is always beyond reproach or even rebuke. So avoid the divination of the Pope. He is human, as we are. He is only guaranteed infallibility under certain conditions.
On the other hand, he is Christ’s vicar.
He is our father of fathers among men, and we should have a great devotion to him. He has no human superior, and he has graces from the Holy Ghost as to the guidance of the Church. But NEVER judge him.
Learn this also from St. Paul.
Even if a Pope is to be rebuked, even then, he is to be repected and venerated. When he rebuked him, he called him by th name given him by Christ to signify his authority: Cephas. Cephas is the rock, the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ. If in a particular circumstance, he is to be rebuked, he is still the pastor of our souls before God.
Thank you Teek, that whole post was very well written, I was thinking of what to write until I came across this and thought ‘perfect’.