Pope Zosimus

[wyam]

Does anyone have info to respond to this claim against papal infallibility?
“Pope Zosimus (417-418 A.D.) reversed the pronouncement of a previous pope. He also retracted a doctrinal pronouncement that he himself had previously made.”
The person posting it says that this show papal infalliblity is incorrect if a pope can reverse a pronouncement.
Thanks
waym

 

[Mjohn1453]

I would like to help you, but you will have to be more specific in what exactly was reversed and what he actually said. To answer your question in general terms though. Papal infallibility pertains only to doctrines of faith and morals. Additionally, for an infallible statement to be infallible it has to be pronounced as such, which was only defined in the 1st Vatican council. So Zosimus wouldn’t be a proof against papal infallibility, or even ammunition for an argument.

Hope that helps

 

[Salmon]

wyam:

Does anyone have info to respond to this claim against papal infallibility?
“Pope Zosimus (417-418 A.D.) reversed the pronouncement of a previous pope. He also retracted a doctrinal pronouncement that he himself had previously made.”
The person posting it says that this show papal infalliblity is incorrect if a pope can reverse a pronouncement.
Thanks
waym

I was reading the other day that Pope John Paul II pronounced imminent rain for that afternoon. After the skies cleared, he said that it wasn’t going to rain after all.

This has nothing to do with papal infallibility.

A future pope could proclaim that Latin Rite priests can marry.

Again, this has nothing to do with papal infallibility.

For a very informative discussion on papal infallibility, you may wish to check out:

The Catholic Encyclopedia

Peace in Christ…Salmon

 

[itsjustdave1988]

The Pope can always reverse a pronouncement, as they have the authority to bind and to loose. If they didn’t have the authroity to “loose,” then Christ would not have given them such authority.

Only those dogmas defined as part of divine and catholic faith are immutable.

Ask the person posting it for source information. What pronouncement? When? What makes him think it was an infallible *de fide *dogma of Catholicism? If they are making a claim, they need to support it with verifiable evidence, otherwise their claim is unconvincing.

 

[DominvsVobiscvm]

This objection is an old one, and doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

This objection was answered succinctly by This Rock magazine:

**Papal infallibility can’t be true because Pope Zozimus pronounced Pelagius to be orthodox and later reversed himself. What do you have to say to that? **

Zozimus (reigned 417-418) was approached by Caelestius, who brought a profession of faith from Pelagius for the Pope’s examination. Zozimus examined Caelestius and the profession and found nothing heretical in them. He said the African bishops’ condemnation of Pelagius and Caelestius had been hasty and instructed Africans with charges against them to appear in Rome for further investigation.

This prompted outrage among the African bishops since they considered the Pelagian controversy to have been closed by Zozimus’s predecessor, Innocent I. Zozimus responded by stressing the primacy of the Roman See and by explaining to them that he had not settled the matter definitively and that he did not intend to do so without consulting them. He said that his predecessor’s decision remained in effect until he had finished investigating the matter.

The bishops provided Zozimus with additional evidence against Pelagius, and the Pope condemned Pelagianism. His initial assessment had been a tentative judgment, based on partial evidence. He did not issue a definitive judgment, much less a doctrinal definition, as indicated by the fact he asked for additional evidence to be sent to Rome. The case of Zozimus thus does not touch the doctrine of papal infallibility.

As you can see, this was not something that touched doctrine, but persons. I can be infallible in a dogmatic pronouncement, but fallible in accusing or condemning a particular individual for holding it. Thus, throughout history perfectly orthodox Catholic churchmen (lay and clerical) have been suspended or excomunicated, or otherwise disciplined for holding false beliefs, when in fact they didn’t. They accpeted their penalties with humility, and later they were often rehabilitated (Saint Joan of Arc is a case-in-point). No pope claims to be infallible in his endorsement or anathema of an individual.

For a more thorough treatment of the Pope Zosimus case, and how it relates to infallibility, see “Pope Zosmius and Pelagianism”.

Saint Zosimus, pray for us!

 

[itsjustdave1988]

What your unscholastic friend is doing is likely to be nothing more than reguritating the information from Loraine Bottner’s book *Roman Catholicism *(which is the anti-Catholic sourcebook which all anti-Catholics uncritically quote from):

“Zozimus (417-418) pronounced Pelagius an orthodox teacher, but later reversed his position at the insistence of Augustine.” (page 248)

If this is their “proof”, than they’ve done nothing but prove they haven’t got a clue what they are talking about.

The above was not an act of the Roman Pontiff, in his official capacity as universal pastor, defining a doctrine as part of the revelation of God to be assented to by all the faithful by divine and Catholic faith.

See more details here: bringyou.to/apologetics/num17.htm

 

[wyam]

Thanks for all the advice.
This all helps a lot.
I’ll probably have more issues from our conversations in the future.

 

[Socrates]

I don’t have it on hand right now but I think Patrick Madrid’s book Pope Fiction addresses this issue as well.