From The Catholic Encyclopedia concerning Dictatus Papae:
” Sackur (see below) has made it probable that the so-called “Dictatus Papæ” (see GREGORY VII) were composed by Deusdedit. These are twenty-seven short theses concerning the privileges of the Roman Church and the pope [ed. Jaffé, Bibl. Rer. Germ., (Berlin, 1864-) II, 174]. Until quite recently Gregory VII himself was generally regarded as the author; Löwenfeld (see below) continued to maintain the authorship of Gregory, but Sackur, however, has shown that the “Indices capitulorum” in the “Collectio canonum” of Deusdedit are closely related to the brief theses known as “Dictatus Papæ” both in respect of sense and verbal text. Most probably, therefore, the latter are taken from the collection of Deusdedit, who put them together from the “Registrum Epistolarum” or letterbook of Gregory. Possibly also Deusdedit was the editor of this famous and important collection of Gregory’s correspondence. In this case, the cardinal appears in a new light as intimate counsellor and intellectual heir”
So as authorship nothing positive but possibly compiled from Gregory’s letters which would explain its being known after his death.
The quote containing “papacy” was from a BBC writer, Peter Stafford. He should have said Roman Church but then again the teaching is Papal Infallibilty as well as church infallibility. Says The Catholic Encyclopedia under “Papal Infallibility”: “the infallibility claimed for the pope is the same in its nature, scope, and extent as that which the Church as a whole possesses; his ex cathedra teaching does not have to be ratified by the Church’s in order to be infallible.”
It says “pope”, the individual not the office, so who’s conflating?
So you really can’t say Gregory didn’t or did write this Dictatus Papae and you certainly can’t say a secretary wrote it.
So where are the “lies”?
The Catholic Encyclopaedia was written at the turn of the 20th century.
More work has been done on Gregory in the past 100 years - vastly more - and there is still not one shred of evidence to suggest that he wrote it.
If you're going to claim that "Gregory VII said", then you need to have hard evidence, or you're lying.
you certainly can’t say a secretary wrote it.
The secretary was its publisher. It first came to light in a book that he wrote, and no one had ever seen the document before - even though plenty of other writings of Gregory VII were publicly known.
Moreover, the language is identical to other things that the secretary wrote under his own name. All the evidence we have points to the secretary's authorship.
The only thing linking Gregory VII to its authorship is the claim made by secretary after Gregory VII was conveniently dead and could not disclaim authorship.
Commonsense applies.
“the infallibility claimed for the pope is the same in its nature, scope, and extent as that which the Church as a whole possesses; his ex cathedra teaching does not have to be ratified by the Church’s in order to be infallible.”
It says “pope”, the individual not the office, so who’s conflating?
First of all, you have selectively and misleadingly torn this quote from context.
It is immediately followed by the following language:
"infallibility is not attributed to every doctrinal act of the pope, but only to his ex cathedra teaching; and the conditions required for ex cathedra teaching are mentioned in the Vatican decree"
It then goes on to list those very specific conditions within which the pope enjoys the charism of infallibility.
There is no conflation here.
The Church is doctrinally infallible. The Church cannot teach false doctrine. The Holy Spirit which guides the Body of Christ does not allow that to happen.
The papacy - an office within the Church - is also doctrinally infallible, because the papacy is part of the Church's teaching authority.
The popes - individual officeholders of the papacy - are not inherently doctrinally infallible and are fully capable of error. Only under certain circumstances and conditions - as described in the parts of the Catholic Enxyclopaedia that you conveniently omitted - does the individual pope teach infallibly under the charism of his office.
Therefore the original statement of the Dictatus Papae (which was not authored by Gregory), namely that the Roman Church is incapable of error, is entirely correct and orthodox.
The rephrased version you presented wherein "Roman Church" is changed to "papacy" is technically correct - except that most non-Catholics use the term "papacy" not to refer the office in itself, but to refer to all the individual men who held the office.
Thus the natural and non-technical takeaway of the average person from rephrased version is: "Pope X can personally do no wrong."
Or, as the original article that began this thread slanderously says:
Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) declared that "The Pope cannot make a mistake".
Something which no historical document written by Gregory or even falsely attributed to him says.
Popes make mistakes all the time and Gregory VII knew this as well as anyone else.
This from the introduction to Cowdrey’s book, Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085, page 502,
“Since the dictatus papae has a place in what is almost certainly the original register of the papal chancery, its authnticity as a document emanating from, and almost certainly drafted by, Gregory himself cannot be seriously questioned”.