[Mrs. Don-o]

"If he is the representative of Christ on the earth, then wouldn't going against him equate to going against Jesus Himself?"

If you had a grasp of history (which I think you do, some, like all of us), you would know the limitations on that sort of statement.

To put it briefly, it's like what Pope John Paul II said in his Ordinatio Sacramentalis on a particular disputed topic:

"We declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful."

Get that? There are areas in which the Pope has no authority whatsoever. That would be (in the case above) changing the matter or form of a Sacrament, or anything else was handed down to us by Christ through the Apostles.

Hence, nothing that is against Christ could be "authoritative" coming from the Pope, or from all the Bishops and Cardinals, or from any person or organ of the Church. You know, as we do, that there have been bad popes. None of them had any authority to lead people away from Christ.

We've also had many, many reformers. I mean real reformers, not people who split.

[metmom]

Luther didn’t split.

He tried reform and the Catholic church ex-communicated him for his trouble.

[Greetings_Puny_Humans]

Get that? There are areas in which the Pope has no authority whatsoever. That would be (in the case above) changing the matter or form of a Sacrament, or anything else was handed down to us by Christ through the Apostles.

In other words, you are saying that if the Pope comes out and asserts that divorcees can receive communion, that you have no obligation to believe official church teaching? But as for your implication that the Catholic Church can't change any of these official doctrines: they do it all the time! See Vatican II. The trick is that they just assert that their obvious changes are really in continuity with the past, even the whole kissing of Korans fad, despite previous Popes calling such activity anathema.

[daniel1212]

If you had a grasp of history (which I think you do, some, like all of us), you would know the limitations on that sort of statement. To put it briefly, it's like what Pope John Paul II said in his Ordinatio Sacramentalis on a particular disputed topic: "We declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church's faithful." Get that? There are areas in which the Pope has no authority whatsoever. That would be (in the case above) changing the matter or form of a Sacrament, or anything else was handed down to us by Christ through the Apostles.

But you are quoting from a non-infallible document asserting that this position is infallible teaching, being from the beginning. Yet, while female pastors/leadership with its direct authority men is unBiblical , yet the NT knows nothing at all of a class of clergy distinctively titled "priests," having a unique sacerdotal function, while Rome allows women in various administrative functions over men.

Meanwhile, another teaching held as infallible is that "the Roman Pontiff, by reason of his office as Vicar of Christ, and as pastor of the entire Church has full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered," (CCC 882)

And which exercise does not need the sanction of the bishops, while the pope cannot be disposed without his consent. The RC Church thus has no authority whatsoever to deny this autocratic power, and consistent with the claims of the power of binding and loosing, a pope could declare the church now has the power to confer priestly ordination on women, perhaps invoking the many Caths who speak of Mary as a divine priestess.

This would be more extreme than the redefinition of an infallible teaching that V2 engaged in, taking "We declare, say, define, and pronounce [ex cathedra] that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff” as meaning that Scripture Protestants, whom Rome used to separate with the sword of men, are now "separated brethren" with RCs, who are

In such a case of papal power confer priestly ordination on women, traditional RCs, many of whom already take exception to aspects of V2, even as heretical, while calling their liberal brethren "cafeteria Catholics," and condemning evangelicals for ascertaining the validity of teaching by examining Scripture, would quickly declare such as heretical.

Which division is just what the papacy is promoted as providing, and requires Caths doing what they condemn others for doing, that of ascertaining the validity of teaching based upon examination of historical established teaching, and or the non-infallible judgment of present prelates.

And while confer priestly ordination on women is extreme and highly implausible, the issue of which teachings require assent is a real issue which pertains to this, and to unity.

RCs are divided over how many infallible teachings (not just by popes) there are, and what they all are, as well as whether assent (at least religious assent) is due to even all encyclicals, while what they mean can also be subject to interpretation. As is canon law regrading excommunication and the application of it.

Some hold that all encyclicals are infallible, and i provide papal teaching which broadly requires assent to all public teaching to the church, while others deny that all encyclicals, esp. the latest of Francis require even religious assent, which excludes public dissent.