Dear brother Greg,
Thank you for the questions.
Mardukm, can you please explain what your concerns are about “separate” infallibility? I’m just wondering if they are the same as my own.
My understanding is directly based on
Pastor Aeternus and the
Official Relatio of Vatican 1.
Pastor Aeternus explicitly states that “papal infallibility” is merely the HS permitting the Pope to possess the infallibility of the Church (“
the Roman Pontiff possesses through the divine assistance promised to him in the person of St. Peter the infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed his Church to have”). So it is and can not in any way be separated from the infallibility of the Church.
After the snippet quoted by brother Beng from the
Official Relatio (that “separate” is taken only in the sense of “distinct”), it goes on: “
We do not thereby separate the Pope from his ordinated conjunction with the Church. For he is infallible only when as doctor of all Christians, that is, as representing the universal Church. He can no more be separated from the Church than the foundation can be separated from the building it bears. Further, we do not separate the Pope infallibly defining from the co-operation and agreement of the Church.”
Our brother has an intense Absolutist Petrine outlook. His statement “
in order for the pope to speak infallibly he must study the deposit of faith (aka the regula fidei aka Scripture+Tradition). Which is fine with me since we know that infallibility is a negative charism” should be taken with a grain of salt. Here are excerpts from a past debate we had:
**Marduk:**You claimed that the Pope can just wake up one morning and decide to make an ex cathedra decree. Can you please cite any Magisterial source for this statement, or are you simply expressing your opinion?
**Beng:**Have you ever wake up one day and just feel like doing something [e.g. going to the swimming pool]? Now, that impulsive thought does not have to be inspire by the Holy Spirit nor cause by previous preponderance (for example, the night before you watch Micheal Phelps). It’s a spontaneous thought. This is what I meant. The pope could just wake up and have a spontaneous thought that he want to pronounce infallible. And if that thought is genuinely part of the deposit of faith, it will be infallible and the whole church is bound to it.
**Marduk:**I can’t believe what I’m reading. So anything the Pope spontaneously thinks of, if he decides to pronounce it ex cathedra, will become Truth?
**Beng:**Yes. If he finalized it by promulgating it it will be the truth
**Marduk:**You have claimed the Pope does not need the aid of the present Church.
**Beng:**Yes. He does not absolutely need it. But it would be better to have the help.
He believes the Pope does not need the help of the Church AT ALL. The Pope can just proclaim
spontaneously. Whereas the
Official Relatio states that the Pope is
"BOUND BY HIS OFFICE" to seek the aid of the Church, brother Beng thinks it is merely helpful. You decide if the High Petrine view or the Absolutist Petrine view is being faithful to the teaching of V1 and the Catholic Church.
It should be noted that when I appealed to the
Official Relatio to refute his errors in our past debate, his response was:
"On my part I will make it simple by passing all arguments base on it."
Btw, he maintains another Absolutist Petrine error in a currently active thread - namely, that the Pope is above an Ecum Council. There is no truth to this, and various sources - from V1, to the old Catholic Encylopedia, to our current Canons - evince the error of that claim.
Beng, also, I was looking through the thread, and I don’t see where mardukm says that the Pope can only depend on the bishops. Maybe there is just a miscommunication?
Thanks for the support. Please permit me to explain further. If you recall, the
Official Relatio asserted that the consensus of the
present preaching of the Magisterium with its head is the RULE OF FAITH even for definitions by the Pope. Would you agree that the “Magisterium” refers to the Pope’s brother bishops? Whether this consensus is gotten by directly consulting with his brother bishops or by other means, it will indeed be the consensus of his brother bishops (at least those who are orthodox).
A fundamental issue between brother Beng (who represents probably a rather extreme form of the Absolutist Petrine view) and me is that he believes that not only can there be a time when the Pope is the
ONLY orthodox bishop left on earth, but he actually opines that the Pope will be the ONLY orthodox PERSON left on earth. Here is another excerpt from that past debate:
**Marduk:**The “Church” by definition is a body of believers. It is not one person. If we take that self-evident Truth, then it is obvious that the statement “the Church is infallible” CANNOT be fulfilled by the idea that ONLY ONE MAN is infallible.
**Beng:**The Pope is a member of the Church. He is incorporated in the mystical body of the Church. I’m sure you won’t deny this. A single person can constitute a Church, theoretically. And you’re statement is not a self-evident truth at all…I don’t think that I ever said that one person CAN NOT be the Church. But I would say this, for Mat 16:18 to be true, the one person left must at least be a bishop. Because if that one person is a laity the sacrament of order would be perish with him and the Church would disappear.
Blessings,
Marduk