“”They were’nt laughing the last time it happend in 1870 when Pius decided he wanted to be infallible and split the church,””
In a hurry here, but this nonsense caught my attention.
This is like saying the Church did not believe the Divinity of Christ until it was declared dogma at the council of Nicea in the 4th century!-which is also not true because the Church always believed in the Divinity Of Christ.
Dogmas are generally declared when heretical movements try to undermine Church teaching and gain momentum(as in the case of Arius etc.)
The Church Fathers taught papal Infallibility ,so it was dogmatic in a sense way before 1870 and was not completely defined.
Here is just one example from Saint Cyprian of Carthage,there are many more from the Church Fathers
“Would heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter whence apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors can come” Cyprian of Carthage(Epistulae 59 (55), 14, [256 A.D.]).
You should also realize that the majority of Popes did not even make 1 infallible statements,so when you read a Pope saying something against consistent church teaching it can not be taken as infallible
Here are lots of good kinks for those who want to educate themselves on this topic
http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2002/0202sbs.asp
http://www.catholicfaithandreason.or...allibility.htm
http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Issues/P...llibility.html
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_c...entium_en.html
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_c...entium_en.html
Of course you are right. I have repeated stated this easy-to-grasp principle to the people on your list. Outside of Scripture, doctrines are not explicitly defined unless challenged by heretics. Unfortunately, it is the custom on this forum to "forget" how the Church defines doctrine whenever it suits the purpose of disputation.
In a hurry here, but this nonsense caught my attention.This is like saying the Church did not believe the Divinity of Christ until it was declared dogma at the council of Nicea in the 4th century!-which is also not true because the Church always believed in the Divinity Of Christ.
Interesting that papal authority is not mentioned in the creeds.
The Church Fathers taught papal Infallibility ,so it was dogmatic in a sense way before 1870 and was not completely defined.Here is just one example from Saint Cyprian of Carthage,there are many more from the Church Fathers
“Would heretics dare to come to the very seat of Peter whence apostolic faith is derived and whither no errors can come” Cyprian of Carthage(Epistulae 59 (55), 14, [256 A.D.]).
Offcourse, Cyprian never accepted Papal authority as noted in his rejection of Pope Stephen's demanded submission to his decree on the rebaptism of heretics and apparently had couched the language of the decree in terms of a claim to primacy using the Petrine texts from the Gospels. At least this is what is implied from the letters of Cyprian and Firmilian. He had threatened to cut off communion, not only with the Churches of North Africa, but also in Asia Minor, where Firmilian was one of the leading bishops. What Cyprian and the other 86 bishops are saying is that they repudiate both the teaching of Stephen and his claims of authority or primacy. Cyprian’s statement is made in the context of the claims and assertions of Stephen and manifests a unanimous rejection by the bishops of those claims. What he is asserting is that such a claim is unheard of and is unlawful in the Church. It is an innovation. The statement taken in full context makes this clear. Cyprian says:
"It remains, that upon this same matter each of us should bring forward what we think, judging no man, nor rejecting any one from the right of communion, if he should think differently from us (a direct allusion to Stephen). For neither does any one of us set himself up as a bishop of bishops, nor by tyrannical terror does any compel his colleague to the necessity of obedience; since every bishop, according to the allowance of his liberty and power, has his own proper right of judgment, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another. But let all of us wait for the judgment of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only one that has the power both of preferring us in the government of His Church, and of judging us in our conduct there (Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), The Seventh Council of Carthage Under Cyprian, p. 565).
Catholic Historian Michael Winter: ‘Cyprian used the Petrine text of Matthew to defend episcopal authority, but many later theologians, influenced by the papal connexions of the text, have interpreted Cyprian in a propapal sense which was alien to his thought...Cyprian would have used Matthew 16 to defend the authority of any bishop, but since he happened to employ it for the sake of the Bishop of Rome, it created the impression that he understood it as referring to papal authority...Catholics as well as Protestants are now generally agreed that Cyprian did not attribute a superior authority to Peter’ (Michael Winter, St. Peter and the Popes (Baltimore: Helikon, 1960), pp. 47-48). Obviously, the Eastern Churches never accepted this bogus claim of universal authority (never mind infallability).
The Church Fathers taught papal Infallibility ,so it was dogmatic in a sense way before 1870 and was not completely defined.
Hmmm, what did Early Church Fathers say about papal infallibility?
Pope John XXII (1316-1334) went so far as to call it (papal infallibility) “…a work of the devil…the Father of Lies.” and in 1324 actually issued a papal bull condemning it as heresy.
Was this Pope considered a church father?
Further note that no place, nowhere, no how, does the Catholic Church identify "infallible" declarations of the Popes. The definition and defining of "Infallible" Papal declarations is a moving target. Do you have any doubt that this is deliberate?
Thank you.