Infallibility

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duffyk4

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Can someone explain to me clearly the concept of infallibility?

What does it mean when they say the Pope is infallible? Or the doctrine of the Church? Or the Church itself? How do we explain things like the Inquisition or other wrongdoings done on the behalf of the Church?

Thanks in advance!
 
Get yourself a copy of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition”, revised in accordance with the official Latin text promulgated by Pope John Paul II.
It was first printed in 2000, and answers many questions, has an index and glossary, and totals over 900 pages.

It gives the official definition of “infallibility”, and points to a couple of explanations in other parts of the Catechism.

Regarding the inquisition - most of the books on this topic were written by Protestants, so they usually are biased and incorrect.
Watch EWTN, they have a progam on this topic and the history of the Crusades.
 
1ke said:
You are assuming that the inquisitions were “wrong doings,” which they were not.
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What were they? Are there any non-biased resources one can go to learn more about them? Because I’ve also been told that they were great “wrong doings”. So it would be nice to be able to read more about them.
 
Rence,
While some particular cases in the inquisition may be debatable, their have been many myths that have been developed by anti-Catholicism through the years claiming the inquisition was evil and oppressive, even in its intent. Solid historical evidence, however, simply doesn’t bear this out. For example, all the stories of the torture dungeons with variously perverse tools to force prisoners to confess or recant are simply made up. There is no evidence, outside the rantings of an English propagandist against Spain and the Church, that such things ever existed. A good place to start unraveling these myths would be to try and find the BBC documentary called The Myth of the Spanish Inquisition.
 
Infallibility is a charismatic gift of the Holy Spirit. It is God who is truly infallible and He grants the gift of infallibility to the Vicar of Christ in regard to the proclaimed dogma of the Church. God gave His Holy Spirit to the Church to guide in all wisdom and Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church. This is not to say that the gates of hell haven’t made some serious advances into the Church by way of sinful priests and popes. But God has protected the Church, by the power of His Spirit, from teaching in error.

See this section of the Catechism for more information.

To our shame, there have been evil acts perpetuated by the hierarchy of the Church (as our latest scandal demonstrates). However, just as in the present scandal, past issues have been clouded, manipulated, lied about, etc. You’d think that 50% of Catholic priests are child molesters by what the press has been writing-- when in reality the Church has the same statistical percentage of sexual misconduct as other organizations…about 2-3%. If you brush up on the true history of the Crusades and Inquisition you might be surprised at what history actually reveals.
 
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