Papal Contradictions

[razredge]

That is not quite correct and depending on who one quotes the number could also be one. The point is that anytime the prequisites for infallibility are present then infallibility applies. It is not necessary for the pope to state that what he is saying is infallible. .

Can I get a list of infallible teachings then?

 

[Cruxis117]

Can I get a list of infallible teachings then?

Why do you need a list? If you accept that the teaching of the Church with regards to faith and morals is infallible, then you simply accept it. There is no requirement of a “list”. If the Church says, “Christ is Lord”, then I believe it.

 

[Cruxis117]

This thread is full of good responses to when someone else asked me the same question you did

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=576569

 

[razredge]

Why do you need a list? If you accept that the teaching of the Church with regards to faith and morals is infallible, then you simply accept it. There is no requirement of a “list”. If the Church says, “Christ is Lord”, then I believe it.

Because otherwise it is quite meaningless to claim that certain teachings are infallible since they are defined as such after the fact, with fallible teachings the ones that have changed over the centuries and infallible teachings the ones that haven’t.

It becomes rather like a case of vaticinium ex eventu where someone claims they can predict the future but is only able to provide the predictions after the event has occurred.

 

[Cruxis117]

Because otherwise it is quite meaningless to claim that certain teachings are infallible since they are defined as such after the fact, with fallible teachings the ones that have changed over the centuries and infallible teachings the ones that haven’t.

It’s not meaningless at all. We simply hold true to what we believe. What we believe we cannot change. Thus, why we don’t have female ordination, ABC, etc.

It becomes rather like a case of vaticinium ex eventu where someone claims they can predict the future but is only able to provide the predictions after the event has occurred.

Except that the rule is already in effect. Put it this way, when Blessed Pope John Paul II said clearly that female ordination was never going to happen, he was saying this with his Apostolic authority, united with the Bishops. This wasn’t declared infallible after the fact. It already was a proper teaching which could not be changed, because it wasn’t wrong.

 

[razredge]

It’s not meaningless at all. We simply hold true to what we believe. What we believe we cannot change. Thus, why we don’t have female ordination, ABC, etc.

Except that the rule is already in effect. Put it this way, when Blessed Pope John Paul II said clearly that female ordination was never going to happen, he was saying this with his Apostolic authority, united with the Bishops. This wasn’t declared infallible after the fact. It already was a proper teaching which could not be changed, because it wasn’t wrong.

Then there should be a list of infallible teachings.

It’s like a fortune teller predicting a 1000 things and saying her some of predictions are infallible and when a prediction comes true she says “look, that was an infallible prediction” whereas if it doesn’t come true then it is merely a fallible prediction.

 

[Cruxis117]

Then there should be a list of infallible teachings.

It’s redundant. Because then we would need an infallible affirmation of that list. And then an infallible affirmation of that affirmation. Etc. Ultimately, we know that everything that there is no error within the Catechism of the Catholic Church that is doctrinal, so you can start there. Ultimately, when the Church says that whatever she teaches in regards to faith and morals is infallible, you can bet that means that it’s every single one.

It’s like a fortune teller predicting a 1000 things and saying her some of predictions are infallible and when a prediction comes true she says “look, that was an infallible prediction” whereas if it doesn’t come true then it is merely a fallible prediction.

But the difference is that we’re not predicting anything. We’re going and saying that, "this teaching is authoritative and infallible (completely protected from error) because we have been taught this from our predecessors, who were taught it from their predecessors, etc. We’re not gambling, here. When we say that something is infallibly taught, such as the intrinsic evil of Abortion or Artificial Birth Control, then it’s intrinsically evil. Both have been taught in this way before someone pronounces it, and after someone pronounces it. If you are referring to statements by Popes, then we must realize that it’s anything that is within the framework of faith and moral. This limits a lot of possibilities for which statements have been made infallible and which haven’t. Remember, we’re working with the past here, not the future. To say that it’s like working with the future, that we’re making an “infallible prediction” and that out of a 1000 some of them are and some are not, is fallacious, because we’re not working with the future here. We’re not saying, "some of the Pope’s statements on faith and morals in regards to murder, communism, abortion, Our Lord Jesus, The Blessed Virgin, the Scriptures, etc. are infallible and others are not. When the Pope says, “Jesus is the Lord our God who takes away the sin of the world”, he is protected from saying “Jesus is just a man” by the Holy Spirit. This is what makes him infallible. He is protected from error. This isn’t just some of the time, it’s all of the time. We know what subjects will be authoritative and which ones won’t. For example, science, I am a theistic evolutionist. I know that some on this forum are YEC and OEC, etc. Yet none of our opinions on evolution or on how creation developed after point zero, the original point of creation, because we all agree that it was God, the Lord Almighty, who created the Heavens and the Earth Ex Nihilo, who is and was and always will be I AM. Whatever we think doesn’t matter when we consider this, because it is a doctrine we all accept as infallible, authorative teaching. The Church, however, does not have the authority to dictate what is true and untrue scientifically. That is beyond their authority. This is the point you must understand, that the Church isn’t saying that they are 100% on everything at all times every day. There is specific criteria.

 

[GraceSofia]

There have been two instances of an officially declared Papal Infallible doctrine: the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and the doctrine of the Assumption.

There is also infallibilty of councils and the Magisterium, but this thread has to do with the popes.

I think people may want to read DOCTRINAL COMMENTARY ON THE CONCLUDING FORMULA OF THE PROFESSIO FIDEI especially:

(6) Such doctrines can be defined solemnly by the Roman Pontiff when he speaks ‘ex cathedra’ or by the College of Bishops gathered in council, or they can be taught infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium of the Church as a “sententia definitive tenenda”.14 Every believer, therefore, is required to give firm and definitive assent to these truths, based on faith in the Holy Spirit’s assistance to the Church’s Magisterium, and on the Catholic doctrine of the infallibility of the Magisterium in these matters.15 Whoever denies these truths would be in a position of rejecting a truth of Catholic doctrine16 and would therefore no longer be in full communion with the Catholic Church.

(11) Examples. Without any intention of completeness or exhaustiveness, some examples of doctrines …
To the truths of the first paragraph belong
the articles of faith of the Creed,
the various Christological dogmas21
and Marian dogmas;22
the doctrine of the institution of the sacraments by Christ and their efficacy with regard to grace;23 the doctrine of the real and substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist24
and the sacrificial nature of the eucharistic celebration;25
the foundation of the Church by the will of Christ;26
the doctrine on the primacy and infallibility of the Roman Pontiff;27
the doctrine on the existence of original sin;28
the doctrine on the immortality of the spiritual soul and on the immediate recompense after death;29
the absence of error in the inspired sacred texts;30
the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.31

 

[Contarini]

A Deist is using this statement as an example to show me that the idea of Papal infallibility is false, because this statement was for Fourth Crusade and Blessed Pope John Paul II made a statement declaring that the Church apologized for this Crusade, therefore there is a contradiction. Can anyone help me make a rebuttal on this?

I don’t believe that those kinds of practical decrees of Councils are infallible (and as someone else has pointed out, Pope JPII’s expressions of repentance were certainly not infallible, though I thoroughly support them).

Furthermore, that decree doesn’t refer to the Fourth Crusade, which had already happened, but to the Fifth Crusade.

And finally, the original goal of the Fourth Crusade, as of the Fifth Crusade, was an invasion of Egypt. We can argue over whether that particular crusading goal was justified, but it is a completely different case from the sack of Constantinople.

Edwin

 

[yablabo]

Can I get a list of infallible teachings then?

Here’s the rule on how to find them from the First Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Catholic Faith, Ch. 3 On Faith, #8:

Wherefore, by divine and Catholic faith all those things are to be believed which are contained in the Word of God as found in Scripture and Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church as matters to be believed as divinely revealed, whether by her solemn judgment or in her Ordinary and Universal Magisterium.

Here’s the rule on determining solemn judgments, also from the First Vatican Council, First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Ch. 4 On the Infallible Teaching Authority of the Roman Pontiff, #9:

Therefore, faithfully adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith, to the glory of God our Saviour, for the exaltation of the Catholic religion and for the salvation of the Christian people, with the approval of the Sacred Council, We teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma that when the Roman Pontiff speaks ex Cathedra (from the Chair), that is, when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his Supreme Apostolic Authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church, he possesses, by the divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, that infallibility which the divine Redeemer willed His Church to enjoy in defining doctrine concerning faith or morals. Therefore, such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are of themselves, and not by the consent of the Church, irreformable. So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.

– Nicole

 

[yablabo]

There have been two instances of an officially declared Papal Infallible doctrine: the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and the doctrine of the Assumption.

All of the dogmas which come from Ecumenical Councils are in fact exercises of the Pope’s infallible Magisterium, since it is by his confirmation alone, and not the consensus of the Bishops, that anything which comes from a Council, whether local or universal is considered infallible. Besides, there are more than merely the Marian dogmas which have been defined by the Pope outside Ecumenical Councils using the prerogative which Christ attached to the Supreme Pastoral Office; the definition of the Church’s authority in regard to priestly ordination of women and the lacking of priestly orders among the anglicans are two more examples.

Check this out from the First Vatican Council, First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ, Ch. 4 On the Infallible Teaching Authority of the Roman Pontiff:

1. To satisfy this Pastoral Office, Our predecessors strove unwearyingly that the saving teaching of Christ should be spread among all the peoples of the world; and with equal care they made sure that it should be kept pure and uncontaminated wherever it was received.

1. It was for this reason that the bishops of the whole world, sometimes individually, sometimes gathered in Synods, according to the long established custom of the churches and the pattern of ancient usage referred to this Apostolic See those dangers especially which arose in matters concerning the faith. This was to ensure that any damage suffered by the faith should be repaired in that place above all where the faith can know no failing.

1. The Roman Pontiffs, too, as the circumstances of the time or the state of affairs suggested, sometimes by summoning Ecumenical Councils or consulting the opinion of the churches scattered throughout the world, sometimes by special Synods, sometimes by taking advantage of other useful means afforded by divine providence, defined as doctrines to be held those things which, by God’s help, they knew to be in keeping with Sacred Scripture and the Apostolic Traditions.

1. For the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by His revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by His assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the Apostles. Indeed, their Apostolic teaching was embraced by all the venerable Fathers and reverenced and followed by all the Holy Orthodox Doctors, for they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Saviour to the Prince of his disciples: I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren.

– Nicole

 

[GraceSofia]

All of the dogmas which come from Ecumenical Councils are in fact exercises of the Pope’s infallible Magisterium, since it is by his confirmation alone, and not the consensus of the Bishops, that anything which comes from a Council, whether local or universal is considered infallible. …

Good point. Thank you.

 

[GraceSofia]

Besides, there are more than merely the Marian dogmas which have been defined by the Pope outside Ecumenical Councils using the prerogative which Christ attached to the Supreme Pastoral Office; the definition of the Church’s authority in regard to priestly ordination of women and the lacking of priestly orders among the anglicans are two more examples.

– Nicole

I just read through vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html and I am wondering why then this is not included in most accounts as an example of officially declared Papal Infallibility? Any idea? I mean what is the difference that causes some people to categorise the definition of the Immaculate Conception one way and the definition of the Church not having authority to ordain females another way?

 

[yablabo]

I just read through vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_22051994_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html and I am wondering why then this is not included in most accounts as an example of officially declared Papal Infallibility? Any idea? I mean what is the difference that causes some people to categorise the definition of the Immaculate Conception one way and the definition of the Church not having authority to ordain females another way?

I can’t say for certain what another person’s intent or motivation would be as to why he would not include everything that falls under ex Cathedra pronouncements to be infallible, but I would guess that it is either because he does not know, he does not believe, or he does not care.

Most people that I’ve discussed this issue with have been ignorant or obstinate, a pretty interesting combination. They either have never, for some reason or another, looked into what is the truth; or they are staking their claims with their “teachers” and to h*ll with the truth.

– Nicole

 

[DavidPalm]

Believe what you want to believe, but simple fact is that heliocentrism was declared a formal heresy as it was expressly contradictory to divine revelation.

There are three errors here. The first is that the decree against Galileo was a papal decree. It was not. It issued from the Congregation of the Holy Office and was never signed by the Pope. That alone is sufficient to sink the charge that papal infallibility could be involved here. See Neo-Geo Double Standards and Exaggerations on Magisterial Documents.

Second, the 1633 decree does not declare heliocentrism a “formal heresy”. As Galileo scholar Maurice Finocchiaro says, “that Copernicanism had been declared heretical . . . was to become one of the most persistent myths in the subsequent controversy” (Retrying Galileo, p. 32). An earlier committee qualification that the notion that the sun was the immovable center of the universe was “formally heretical” was cited in the 1633 decree, but was not adopted by that decree. Canonical sanctions must, according to the Catholic Church’s maxims from time immemorial, be interpreted strictly, that is to say, as narrowly as possible and affecting the fewest people as possible. Noting that the 1633 decree does not adopt the earlier qualification of “formally heretical” is a strict canonical interpretation.

And finally, the 1633 decree was disciplinary in nature, with Galileo and his behavior as its subject. It is not, therefore, a doctrinal decree and could not in any case serve as a doctrinal definition for the universal Church. As Fr. Brian Harrison has said, opposition to Copernicanism was, “promulgated only in disciplinary documents, not in formally doctrinal ones . . . [and] was never promulgated directly and personally by any Pope, only indirectly, through the instrumentality of the Vatican Congregations of the Index and the Holy Office” (ROMA LOCUTA EST - CAUSA FINITA EST).

Even Protestant scholar Karl von Gebler in his book Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia agreed that, “The conditions which would have made the decree of the Congregation, or the sentence against Galileo, of dogmatic importance, were, as we have seen, wholly wanting” (p. 235f.)

 

[razredge]

There are three errors here. The first is that the decree against Galileo was a papal decree. It was not. It issued from the Congregation of the Holy Office and was never signed by the Pope. That alone is sufficient to sink the charge that papal infallibility could be involved here. See Neo-Geo Double Standards and Exaggerations on Magisterial Documents.
)

I have no problem with believing that any condemnation on Galileo is not infallible teaching as long as it is consistently applied to other contradictions between science and tradition (where it is often the case that some Papal statement is used as ‘infallible teaching’ despite it being less forceful than the Galilean condemnation in many ways).

And to those who insist that heliocentrism wasn’t condemned infallibly while modern scientific findings are, there are these rejoinders:

In spite of all that has been said by these apologists, there no longer remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal infallibility was committed fully and irrevocably against the double revolution of the earth. As the documents of Galileo's trial now published show, Paul V, in 1616, pushed on with all his might the condemnation of Galileo and of the works of Copernicus and of all others teaching the motion of the earth around its own axis and around the sun. So, too, in the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, and in all the proceedings which led up to it and which followed it, Urban VIII was the central figure. Without his sanction no action could have been taken.

True, the Pope did not formally sign the decree against the Copernican theory then; but this came later, In 1664 Alexander VII prefixed to the Index containing the condemnations of the works of Copernicus and Galileo and ``all books which affirm the motion of the earth a papal bull signed by himself, binding the contents of the Index upon the consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed and approved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly, the condemnation of ``all books teaching the movement of the earth and the stability of the sun.

The Pope himself, Paul V, now intervened again: he ordered that Galileo be brought before the Inquisition. Then the greatest man of science in that age was brought face to face with the greatest theologian–Galileo was confronted by Bellarmin. Bellarmin shows Galileo the error of his opinion and orders him to renounce it. De Lauda, fortified by a letter from the Pope, gives orders that the astronomer be placed in the dungeons of the Inquisition should he refuse to yield. Bellarmin now commands Galileo, “in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the earth moves, nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in writing.” This injunction Galileo acquiesces in and promises to obey.[137]

This was on the 26th of February, 1616. About a fortnight later the Congregation of the Index, moved thereto, as the letters and documents now brought to light show, by Pope Paul, V solemnly rendered a decree that “the doctrine of the double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun is false, and entirely contrary to Holy Scripture”; and that this opinion must neither be taught nor advocated. The same decree condemned all writings of Copernicus and “all writings which affirm the motion of the earth.” The great work of Copernicus was interdicted until corrected in accordance with the views of the Inquisition; and the works of Galileo and Kepler, though not mentioned by name at that time, were included among those implicitly condemned as “affirming the motion of the earth.”

 

[razredge]

It’s redundant. Because then we would need an infallible affirmation of that list. And then an infallible affirmation of that affirmation. Etc.

That makes no sense at all, if the teachings are known to be infallible then the list will contain all infallible teachings known to the writer of the list - which is fine for my purposes

 

[Cruxis117]

That makes no sense at all, if the teachings are known to be infallible then the list will contain all infallible teachings known to the writer of the list - which is fine for my purposes

Well, I would suggest looking towards the CCC, to start. It’s authoratative and very well-written.

 

[razredge]

Well, I would suggest looking towards the CCC, to start. It’s authoratative and very well-written.

Ah, but then it can’t be - since (as Grannymh will tell you) it says that Adam & Eve are historic persons and we are all biologically descended from them.

 

[Cruxis117]

Ah, but then it can’t be - since (as Grannymh will tell you) it says that Adam & Eve are historic persons and we are all biologically descended from them.

Which is true and which I agree with. I don’t see where that has any matter in the CCC.