Papal Infallibility only happened twice?

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Dovekin said:
The difficulty here is the canon that says doctrines can only be taken as infallible if it is manifest that it is. So if there is disagreement, that means it is not manifest and so cannot be taken as infallible. (Presuming it is responsible disagreement)
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You are misunderstanding the Canon. It is the DECREE OF INFALLIBILITY that must be manifest ( publically proclaimed).

§3 No doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless this is manifestly demonstrated.

In other words, the Church does not secretly hold infallible teachings, all of the declarations of infallible teaches are publicly proclaimed ( manifestly demonstrated), so that every theologian can point to where the particular Eccumenical Council, Papal Declaration etc…was made and what it specifically stated.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The New Testament is not a pronouncement of a Pope or Magisterium, except for the part written by Peter.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t believe in it, but we don’t need an infallibility doctrine for it.
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The NT canon was reaffirmed by Trent, for instance, but had been infallible long before.

I would guess Catholics in Utah would argue yes it does need infallibility. So would Catholics living in areas dominated by the Gnostics. But also, there is a modern movement to add books to the NT, which has gained a little ground in mainline denominations.

Thus, “Bible Christians” who say “there is no need for Church infallibility, it’s all there in the Word of God”, come up short here. Without an infallibly defined canon, we don’t know which books are in the Bible.
 
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There is no legitimate ground of disagreement about the infallible content of Ordinatio Sacerdotalis —the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has made this indisputably clear. Sure, dissenters can continue to debate any dogma, including the two Marian ones. That doesn’t mean we should take them seriously.

There is only a legitimate scholarly debate (emphasis on scholarly, because it doesn’t really make a practical difference to our assent) on whether OS was an ex cathedra de fide statement in and of itself (and as you point out, it doesn’t seem to fit that particular criteria). The traditional teaching on Holy Orders is infallible in either case, confirmed by the magisterium, and is not up for debate. That won’t change with time, unless the church decides to contradict itself and abandon its entire authoritative structure.

http://jimmyakin.com/library/womens-ordination-its-infallible
 
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Just FYI, I’m not advocating for a particular teaching here, and the people who say that there are only two infallible pronouncements generally aren’t either. Canon Law Made Easy for example analyzed infallibility as a canon law issue. I’m not sure if you’re just using Holy Orders as an example or if you picked that one especially for some reason but there are many other examples and the real issue here is that there seems to be differences of opinion on infallibility between various people who aren’t pushing any agenda.

Bottom line is that since everybody also agrees we had infallible teachings before 1870, the official teaching on papal infallibility doesn’t seem to be adding much to the picture except for the 2 Marian dogmas which were already so well established there was really no need to declare them infallible IMHO.
 
As @Cor_ad_Cor mentioned above OS and Holy Orders seems to be the only other issue since Vatican I where infallibility is questioned or contentious.

What would be another particular example you have in mind?
 
Saint canonizations are a big one.
Some people also argue over birth control and death penalty teachings.
I’m sure there’s somebody out there arguing about gays and masturbation too.
Pretty much every “moral teaching”.

I reckon if the Church ever speaks directly to co-redemptrix issues that could potentially be one. There are already otherwise legit people insisting Mary is co-redemptrix without the Church saying so.
 
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It’s moot though ultimately, as his time was accepted by and proclaimed by the Council. The infallibility of councils has long been established and widely accepted.
 
Thanks, but although I usually like his answers, I already said he’s not really laying anything to rest here, and I don’t think any apologist can.
I think the Vatican eventually needs to speak more clearly to this general issue. Not holding my breath under this Pope though.
 
I disagree that a Pope makes a Council infallible, if that’s what you meant. Rather, a pope recognizes a council as valid and thus infallible. Remember, the Popes didn’t even attend most of the early councils, but simply recognized them later.
The Church is infallible. That infallibility may be exercised by the Pope alone or by the college of bishops in union with the Pope.
 
The position of the CDF, under then Cardinal Ratzinger, is that the OS statement was not an exercise of the infallible extraordinary magisterium, and does not constitute a dogma, but is rather a definitive articulation of the infallible teaching of the Church’s ordinary magisterium.
 
Contraception is in the same category as the ordination of women. There is no formal dogma in place at this time. Yet we are bound by the Church’s teaching as it has been infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium…
Does that leave a tiny room for doubt… that until a dogma is promulgated it could change? Maybe… in an abstract academic sense… but as far as we laity are concerned, it’s been infallibly taught by the ordinary magisterium and we are bound.
 
Since it was declared, it happened only twice. However, what many people imply is that even before it was explicitly defined, Papal Infallibility was a thing that was happening in the Church anyway- and hence they do consider many statements of Popes to be infallible if they meet certain criteria such as speaking about faith and morals publicly ant authoritatively.

If Church went “without it” for 1800 years, it would mean Papal Infallibility was not a dogma, but innovation. Same way Church did not define Assumption yet believed in it, Church had Papal Infallibility yet did not define it up until Vatican I. Pope Gregory the Great was known to defend Papal Infallibility and it is generally taken as logical implication of Papal Authority he used to assert too (if Pope can make all synods null and void, he should have some sort of authority behind those actions such as infallibility).
 
twf said:
I disagree that a Pope makes a Council infallible, if that’s what you meant. Rather, a pope recognizes a council as valid and thus infallible.
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No, because an ecumenical council is not ecumenical until it has been recognized by the pope. That is why not all councils are infallible. A decision by a group of bishops is never infallible, otherwise we would have no criteria to distinguish an infallible council from an fallible council. If the pope’s approval was not necessary to make it infallible, then the second council of Ephesus and the first decisions of the council of Basel (where they declared the superiority of the council over the pope) would be valid. But they are not, because they were never accepted by the pope. Sure, a council not yet recognized by the pope may be without errors, but it is not until the pope recognizes it that we may have a guarantee of this absence of errors.
 
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Still not sure I agree. The Pope recognizes what is or isn’t a valid council, thus giving us that certainty… but the council is not simply “borrowing” infallibility from the Pope. The authority of councils do not flow from the papacy, but from directly Christ himself. Yes, the Pope must ratify a council for it to be binding, but a valid ecumenical council exercises infallibility in its own right. It’s a subtle distinction but an important one.
 
Yet Popes have never disagreed with one another in ‘ex cathedra’ statements for 2,000 years.
 
OK I thought that infallible truths as part of the deposit of faith (articulated by the CDF about the OS statement) could also be called dogma but as a secondary category, and not only formal, explicit, de fide definitions. But you mean that dogma is the proper term only for that highest category of doctrinal statements, which are held to be divinely revealed and necessary for salvation.

Even if we limit the word dogma technically in this way, we can’t treat that as if there is any room whatsoever for doubt regarding the other infallible teachings, or that they could ever change; otherwise they are not infallible.
 
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twf said:
Still not sure I agree. The Pope recognizes what is or isn’t a valid council, thus giving us that certainty… but the council is not simply “borrowing” infallibility from the Pope. The authority of councils do not flow from the papacy, but from directly Christ himself. Yes, the Pope must ratify a council for it to be binding, but a valid ecumenical council exercises infallibility in its own right. It’s a subtle distinction but an important one.
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I would say that the council exercises its teaching authority in its own right. And this authority ultimately comes from Christ, yes. However, I would not say it exercises infallibility in its own right. Because the definition of “infallibility” is : “the inability to err”. However, councils do sometimes err, as proven by the second council of Ephesus, and others. Therefore a council doesn’t have infallibility by itslef without the pope. Authority? Yes. Truth? Most of the times. But infallibility? Not without the pope.
Unless of course by “council” you mean only “ecumenical council”, because an ecumenical council is, by definition, a council infallibly approved by the pope, and is therefore, by definition, infallible in its own right. But then “in its own right” doesn’t mean “even without the pope”.
 
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All Ecumenical Councils derive their authority from the pope, the thing is, it is doubtless that Papal Infallibility had been used numerous times Before the First Vatican council, it just that Vatican I codified the conditions and uses for which it could be said to be at work, since these conditions and the mandatory belief in Papal Infallibility were not present (in a known manner) prior to Vatican I, it is almost impossible to know which beliefs whose infallibility predates Vatican I are such due directly to Papal infallibility vs tradition etc.
 
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