Are passive sheep able to have any kind of spiritual discernment without asking their *infallible* interpreter what to believe?
BTW! How do you know which "infallible interpreter" is the right one to ask?
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church says there have been about thirty-five antipopes in the history of the RCC. How can there be two infallible and opposing popes at the same time? Which is the true pope? Since there is no infallible list of popes or even an infallible way to determine who is the infallible pope, the system has a serious logical problem. Each pope can excommunicate the other (and sometimes have). This being the case, claiming that only one is the real pope is at best only theoretical and does not solve the practical problem of which pope should be followed.
And did you know that the pope has officially spoken _ex cathedra_ only one time in a whole century (on the Bodily Assumption of Mary)! (The idea of Mary ascending to heaven without dying was not made an official doctrine of the RCC until 1950 --- nearly twenty centuries after Christ).
And an "infallible" pope (Honorius I) was condemned by the Sixth General Council for teaching heresy. Roman Catholic expert, Ludwig Ott, says that "Pope Leo II confirmed his anathematization...". Here we have an infallible pope teaching a fallible, indeed _heretical,_ doctrine. If the papal teaching office is infallible -- if it cannot mislead on doctrine and ethics -- then how could a papal teaching be heretical? Do you know?
And how could this supposedly *infallible* pronouncement of the RCC wind up being fallible?: The Jesuits, the Dominicans, and three popes (Paul V, Gregory XV, and Urban VIII), played key roles when Galileo was summoned by the Inquisition in 1632, tried, and on June 21, 1633, pronounced "vehemently suspected of heresy." Even though Pope Urban VIII eventually allowed Galileo to return to his home in Florence, he remained under house arrest until his death in 1642.
Do you know that in "Catholic" countries the Bible is still shunned as "dangerous.” As documented by the Hefleys in their book, By Their Blood: Christian Martyrs Of The 20th Century, (Mott Media, 1979), wherever the Church of Rome has political power, it still does all it can to keep the Bible away from the people.
Oh, and by the way --- do you agree with the RCC in it's refusal to retract its official denial of religious freedom and its right to use violence to force people to accept its doctrines?
Let's see, should I depend on the church that is the bride of Christ, or Matchett-PI. Hmmm. Look, you and I would never agree on anything. Your whole system rests on what I would describe as a faulty interpretation of 2 Tim;3:16. From that starting point I could never see your interpretations as credible. Sorry.