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noma
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In an appropriately separate thread:Funny you should say that. I’ve kind of tongue-in-cheek said before that all Protestants think they are popes (except taking infallibility much much farther).I never thought I’d find anyone who admitted it!
I think, with the proper understanding of infallibility, and of the conditions in which there would be infallibility, we can understand that all of us have inherited this gift, insofar as we speak the Truth of Christ.
It is not a guarantee that what we say will be protected from error, but rather that the Message of the Cross is protected from error.
So, insofar as we teach this true message, we are all Popes. Insofar as we teach anything else, we are not.
And so we can never be certain what is or is not completely true. Rather, we can only have a range of confidence in what is taught, increasing as more of the Church (as the invisible communion of all believers) through history would assent to the teaching. And that which the evidence of concent in this manner points to (though insufficiently), and that which we desire to believe, we give assent in faith.
And naturally, the understanding evolves and improves, as the gates of hell will not prevail against the Church.