Posted on 11/11/2014 11:35:48 AM PST by NYer
A quick reminder that infallible does not mean sinless. Here are some quick facts about the papacy:
1) All of the 266 popes have sinned, including the first pope, St. Peter, who committed among the worst of sins: He denied Our Lord three times during the Passion.
2) While all of the popes have been sinners, it’s also true that many of the popes have practiced heroic virtue, rising to the heights of great sanctity. The first popes (and several subsequent popes) died as martyrs for the faith, and many popes have been canonized or beatified. Saintly popes are common.
3) Though most popes were good and holy men, there were a handful of popes who were bad, wicked and/or corrupt. A recounting of their personal sin would make your hair curl! It is entirely possible that there are popes in hell.
4) Whether saintly or evil, no pope has ever taught heresy (i.e., no pope has ever taught error as Truth). The Holy Spirit guides the Church and protects her so that the faithful will never be led into doctrinal error — no matter who sits in the Chair of Peter.
5) If you wonder how someone can speak truth while not living it, think of a math professor teaching his students perfectly correct formulas and concepts, while he himself cheats on his taxes and cannot seem to keep a balanced checkbook. Or think of a chronic adulterer who preaches that adultery is wrong. His actions are evil, but what he says is perfectly true.
There you have it. Infallibility does not mean impeccability. Just as God protected sinful men from teaching doctrinal error when writing the Bible, He also protected sinful Peter and his sinful successors from teaching doctrinal error while leading His Church.
Thanks be to God.
You are wrong, please see cloud mountain’s post #38.
I have learned over the years that nothing I can say will change the hearts or minds of those that willfully choose to remain ignorant. I have also anything more I say will only give those same individuals a spring board to have rants, tantrums, hissy fits, and further express anti-Catholic bigotry.
EXALT: the definitions today are very broad and open to interpretation.
Simply put:
Catholics VENERATE saints and Mary.
Venerate: regard with great respect; revere.
Catholics WORSHIP God.
Worship: adore as God.
YIKES! That is a lot to memorize. My grandmother attended Catholic school when she was a kid. I’ll have to mention this to her.
My grandmother went to Catholic school. I’ll ask her about this.
“Be on your guard against false religious teachers, who come to you dressed up as sheep but are really greedy wolves. You can tell them by their fruit. Do you pick a bunch of grapes from a thorn-bush or figs from a clump of thistles? Every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree is incapable of producing bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. The tree that fails to produce good fruit is cut down and burnt. So you may know men by their fruit.” — Jesus Christ
If nothing else, folks might want to be careful about whom they call “Father”...you might not like the “Grandfather”!
Obviously the relationship of my physical father is a normal use of the word.
But when I start bowing down to a MAN and start giving him special 'divine' characteristics such as 'infallibility' there the problem arises.
Don't try to obfuscate the word POPE=Holy Father with a normal use of the word father.
"Show me the canon listed in scripture"
Of course the individual writings gathered into the Bible do not list every other writing, you know that. However, Peter in fact, calls the writings of Paul 'Scripture.' (2 Peter 3:15-16)
15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. 16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Many Old Testament writings are quoted in the New Testament. To pretend that canon is a malleable thing is preposterous. Is your God so weak that He can't ensure his Word is protected down through the ages?
My God spoke the universe into existence, I think He can make sure His will is delivered though the ages.
You keep throwing out 'Protestantism' like I should protect it or something.
In your earlier post you state that the concept of infallibility was older than the protest movement. So what? It was still 1300 years after the church was established. THIRTEEN HUNDRED YEARS!
No one before that dare breathe the heresy and LIE that a man was infallible.
>>Yes, but only when he invokes infallibility.<<
funny stuff right there.
Why ask me when you can look at a calendar? How do you check the Pope to make sure he read the calendar aright?
Acts 17:11 “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
“Impeccability is about no sin. It has nothing to do with infallibility.”
Claiming infallibility IS a sin: pride.
Is the Pope a prophet?
Other than a brief comment about making a single correct & important statement - and making a pun in the process - there is _nothing_ in scripture establishing a Papal order, much less an infallible one. Peter sure didn’t consider his statements on any topic “infallible”.
“None of that has anything to do with infallibility.”
That was my point. 2/5ths of the post had nothing do with the topic.
“Actually none.”
Handled, of course, by retroactively declaring such errors not matters of doctrine, and thereby not violations of the infallibility principle.
Indulgences, for instance, were Pope-approved theology and thus infallible (hey, it’s someone’s soul on the line there, better be right else it’s evil) - until they weren’t (oh, nope, obviously evil therefore the Pope couldn’t have approved it so he didn’t).
“The Ninety-Five Theses include no such list.”
The 95 Theses was exactly such a list. Of course, being a matter of pointing at fallacies, the points are then excluded from the infallible, maintaining the premise of infallibility.
“the Holy Spirit isn’t keeping him from error.”
Who said the Holy Spirit keeps the Pope from error? the Pope? Sure wasn’t scripture.
Actually, He did. "He who hears you hears me" (Luke 10:16), and "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matt. 18:18).
Nor will you find the word Trinity. You do believe in the Trinity, don't you?
for later.
What you’re saying is illogical.
“No one is claiming a prohibition of the word ‘father’ as a descriptor only in terms of magnification e.g. ‘Holy Father’”
That’s not true. The idiocy of the recent Protestant/Evangelical anti-Catholic stance on this point has forced some of their adherents to actually stop calling their fathers “father”. I met one. When I asked him if he called his father “father” he said no - in other words, that he followed his misunderstanding of scripture to its ultimate extent. I asked him what he called his father. He said, “Dad”. I told him “dad” meant “father”. He was devastated. He had no idea of what to call his father now.
“Obviously the relationship of my physical father is a normal use of the word.”
Yet St. Paul was a father to those in the faith: 1 Timothy 1:2.
“But when I start bowing down to a MAN and start giving him special ‘divine’ characteristics such as ‘infallibility’ there the problem arises.”
The problem is your misunderstanding. He has no ‘divine’ characteristics.
“Don’t try to obfuscate the word POPE=Holy Father with a normal use of the word father.”
As I demonstrated above it is Protestants who confuse one with the other.
“Of course the individual writings gathered into the Bible do not list every other writing, you know that.”
Which proves I’m right. Case closed on that score.
“However, Peter in fact, calls the writings of Paul ‘Scripture.’ (2 Peter 3:15-16)”
That doesn’t help you much. I asked about Matthew’s gospel.
“Many Old Testament writings are quoted in the New Testament.”
Which in itself is not a proof of inspiration nor was it ever explained as such in scripture. You’re failing miserably.
“To pretend that canon is a malleable thing is preposterous.”
Who is doing that? If you’re saying I am, then you’re the one pretending here.
“Is your God so weak that He can’t ensure his Word is protected down through the ages?”
No, so why are you now making something up? Is your sola scriptura so week that you can’t prove it using scriptura alone? Yes, yes it is.
“My God spoke the universe into existence, I think He can make sure His will is delivered though the ages.”
He did - through the Church.
“You keep throwing out ‘Protestantism’ like I should protect it or something.”
You can’t protect it.
“In your earlier post you state that the concept of infallibility was older than the protest movement. So what?”
The what is that it was an error to say otherwise. I got it right. Anyone saying it only dates to the 19th century in any way, shape or form is simply wrong.
“It was still 1300 years after the church was established. THIRTEEN HUNDRED YEARS!”
Protestantism - your belief even if you say otherwise - dates only from 1500 after the Catholic Church was founded. Are you sure you want to go down that route?
“No one before that dare breathe the heresy and LIE that a man was infallible.”
It was not a lie nor a heresy to say that the Holy Spirit infallibly acted through the Church and Christians were not afraid to say it.
“funny stuff right there.”
Truthful stuff there - stuff you can’t refute.
It would be nice if your religion could be more honest...
All the forgeries (the Isidorian Decretals for one) surely count for heresies...
The Holy Spirit guides the Church and protects her so that the faithful will never be led into doctrinal error — no matter who sits in the Chair of Peter.
That statement right there is heretical... The Church is the body of Christ with Jesus at the head...
1Co_11:3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is
the Church? nope...
a magisterium? nope...
a pope? nope...
Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
Your religion reeks of biblical error that we have been posting here for years...
“On the block where I hang out we call it Tuesday.”
It is Tuesday. That’s infallibly true. Who won the last World Series? San Francisco Giants. That’s an infallibly true statement.
“But I’m wouldn’t take that as infallible; I’ll I did was look at the calendar. You looking at your calendar is the only way you would know if I’m right, not because I can claim a cloak of infallibility.”
False. I didn’t look at any calendar today and I knew it was Tuesday because yesterday was Monday. But how I knew you were right is irrelevant. All that matters is that you made an infallibly true statement: today is Tuesday.
“Why ask me when you can look at a calendar?”
I didn’t need to look at a calendar. I already knew the answer. I just wanted you to make an infallibly true statement. And you did.
“How do you check the Pope to make sure he read the calendar aright?”
I don’t. That’s not my job. That’s the Holy Spirit’s job and He never fails at it.
Remember, today is Tuesday. You made an infallibly true statement.
No need ... freeper cloudmountain has already done the work for you. Scroll back through the thread and you will find ALL of the popes dating back to Peter - an unbroken succession from the time of the Apostles. Moreover, Catholic Hierarchy, maintains an online database of every bishop in the world, along with the name of his consecrator, going back through time, through the laying on of hands.
You’re wrong...
Clearly, you have a serious misunderstanding of 'papal infallibility'. Infallibility is not the absence of sin. Nor is it a charism that belongs only to the pope. Indeed, infallibility also belongs to the body of bishops as a whole, when, in doctrinal unity with the pope, they solemnly teach a doctrine as true. We have this from Jesus himself, who promised the apostles and their successors the bishops, the magisterium of the Church: "He who hears you hears me" (Luke 10:16), and "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven" (Matt. 18:18).
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