Infallible interpretation is a Romish fiction.
Disputes about protestant vs. catholic vs. orthodox denominations are also meaningless when you look at the actual data. There is as much diversity of opinion among RC bishops and apologists as among Lutheran denomination (for instance). In the RC world every bishop is his own denomination.
Catholic Answers has hammered this same theme for years. According to them, an infallible, magisterial interpretation of Scripture is the only thing that can assure true unity, and the continuing proliferation and fragmentation of Protestant denominations is living proof that there can be no unity under the principle of sola scriptura.Suppose for the sake of argument we grant their premises and measure the Catholic apologists themselves by their own standard? [Karl] Keating is arguably the most prominent of dozens of Catholic apologists on the Internet. All of them claim they have an infallible interpretation of Scripture, given to them through the magisterium of Rome. So how has the principle of "unity" fared in the Roman Catholic apologetics community?
Not very well, it turns out. To cite one well-known example, Keating has disavowed and waged war on the Internet for several years against one of his best-known former lieutenants, Gerry Matatics, a convert from Protestantism who now heads an organization of his own. The trouble began, it seems, when Matatics declared his preference for traditional Catholicism with a Latin Mass, while Keating is staunchly in favor of the innovations instituted by the Vatican II Council—including the new Mass in the vernacular.
In 1995, Keating said he considered Matatics "a sad example of how schism leads very quickly to heresy." [The Wanderer, February 16, 1995 p. 7.] Keating has published a number of articles over the years in This Rock magazine warning other Catholics against his former associate's influence. [e.g., Karl Keating, "Habemus Papam?" This Rock (July/August 1995).] Both sides took their case to the World Wide Web, posting articles and open letters, debating whether Keating or Matatics best represents the "Catholic" position. [See, for example, "An Open Letter to Mr. Gerry Wells in Defense of Gerry Matatics"]
The battle raged for several years while Matatics remained in full communion with Rome. Then in early 2005, Matatics embraced a view known as sedevacantism, which is the opinion that no legitimate pope has occupied the Holy See since the death of Pius XII. Ostensibly, this involves a kind of auto-excommunication. According to Dave Armstrong (himself a lay Catholic apologist), when Matatics renounced the current pope,
he incurred latae sententiae (automatic excommunication), based on cc. 751 and 1364 of the Code of Canon Law. The first states: the aforesaid canons defines schism as "refusal of subjection to the Roman Pontiff, or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him". The second states that the penalty for is automatic excommunication.Matatics, of course, still considers himself a Roman Catholic—a truer Catholic than those who accept Vatican II. The ironic thing is that virtually every pope for the 450 years before Vatican II would have much more in common with Matatics than with Keating in their respective opinions about the Mass. (So much for semper eadem.)And Matatics is not the only Roman Catholic apologist to wage a public feud with Keating. Robert A. Sungenis is still at it.
Such feuds are symptomatic of several larger conflicts within the Catholic Church. Keating is a "conservative Catholic," whereas Sungenis is a "traditionalist." The Roman Catholic Church is home to vast differences of opinion about the Marian doctrines, confusion about supposed Marian prophecies, disputes over canon law, and other deep-seated disagreements about important doctrines. Various factions and sects operate within the walls of the Catholic Church, waging polemic battles as lively and intense as any that ever took place between Protestant denominations.
i don’t think you’d ever hear and Orthodox call an individual bishop infailable...
Ha!
I got tossed from Catholic Answers!
Trust me, Catholic Answers is not the Vatican.
BTW, this statement is wrong...
Sungenis is a “traditionalist.” (implying that he is a branch of The Roman Catholic church)
No he isn’t, he is in schizm. This kind of Traditionalist does not believe that the Pope is the Pope. He also is a Protestant, protesting Rome.
That is something along the lines I tried stating before. But you have to admit, at least the Protestants are honest and open about it. :)