Posted on 05/20/2008 7:45:05 AM PDT by NYer
Can you say what’s confusing about it? Not what’s wrong, but what’s confusing. It seems pretty simple to me.
We’re talking about all the infallibilities.
What a great post, Sister Alamo.
We love Him because He first loved us. So, even that is grace. :>)
I'd say that the conference in Jerusalem gives a precedent. Nobody thinks anyone there individually and "on his own time", so to speak, was infallible. But when they gather and deliberate they end up saying "It seems good to the Holy Spirit and to us ...." I think we have a precedent.
Thank you so much for your encouragements, dear brother in Christ!
You, too, are a blessing on these pages, sister. I trust all is well with you and yours.
Thank you for asking and thank you for your encouragements, dear brother in Christ!
No one who actually believes that would post anything but the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Those who claim such but do NOT believe it will quote the CCC and pad it out with unsupported misinterpretations.
Evidently "papal infallibility" became dogma in 1870 at the First Vatican Council. But obviously, by then, many "papal bulls" and such had already been written.
And it is apparent that some of those would be considered infallible whereas others would not be considered infallible.
The Catholic Encyclopedia mentions that, in order to be considered infallibile, whatever it is must be a definitive statement.
Elsewhere in the same source (though I have lost the url) it mentioned that the use of the term "anathema" in the writings of the councils was a determining factor in what is to be considered infallible. But it did not indicate that such a word usage was conclusive in reference to papal infallibility.
Also, now that the term "anathema" no longer is used since Vatican II - it raises the question anew as to how one knows what is or is not infallible from the documents which may proceed in the future from such councils.
In short, is there any source out there which presents a thorough and official review of all the historical manuscripts to itemize what is included/excluded as infallible doctrine and the reasoning behind it and lays out for the interested observer (e.g. me) the means whereby such infallible doctrine will be conveyed in the future?
There is nothing better than your 1000-page catechism for showing people what the RCC actually says it believes and teaches to illustrate the vast and glaring difference between God's word and Rome.
Thus, we affirm with gratitude...
"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." -- Romans 8:28
Amazing to see that posted as a justification for anti-Catholic hate.
By the way, that's "Catechism of the Catholic Church."
I know that's just a forgivable oversight. No one would be so petty or so driven by hate as to refuse to capitalize a proper noun for fear of somehow accidentally directing even a gram of respect toward the Catholic Church.
That would be unconscionably pathetic.
Why do present day Apologists find it necessary to "explain" why a clear cut declaration by the 6th Ecumenical Council of a pronouncement of anethema against Pope Honorius for the crime of "Heresy" doesn't really mean what is clearly written?
Why is the definition of "Infallibility" worded in such a way that Catholic Apologists will argue till the cows come home whether a particular Pope's encyclical met the "standard"?
Do either one or both of the two following Papal declarations meet the "infallibility" standards?
"Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff."
and/or
"Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed regarding a matter of great importance, a matter which pertains to the Church's divine constitution itself, in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren (cf. Lk 22:32) I 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."
Is there any "official" Church statement on either or both of the above? (Please bear in mind a statement by the Director of a particular Church office cannot be considered an "infallible" source.) Plausible deniability ya know.
It seems the case of Pope Honorius was raised somewhere back in this thread. As I have been away from this thread a while, I thought I would ping all those who seem to still be going strong after almost 1,100 posts. My post is somewhat long, but does try to address the Pope Honorius case directly.
The Monothelite Crisis was related to the Will of Christ, in that it was only a Divine Will. The passage from St. Luke 22: 39-42 (Mount of Olives” where Christ states “not my will, but thine, be done” was used to support the position. This heresy started in around 630 AD when the Patriarch of the Church at Constantinople, Patriarch Sergius, proposed the Monothelite formula as a theological position to reconcile the Monophysite’s and in particular the Monophysite Patriarch who was in charge at the former important Bishop/See in Antioch. The Church in Alexandria was also under the Monophysite’. . Remember, the Monophysite heresy was rejected at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD under the orthodox leadership of Pope St. Leo the Great. Eventually, Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople would sign and agreement recognizing the Monothelite formula.
Warren Carroll (A Catholic Historian) in “The Building of Christendom: A History of Christendom Vol. 2”, pp. 223-224 points out that in all of the discussions among Alexandria, Antioch and Constantinople, Rome was never consulted. Finally, in 633 AD a monk named Sophronius of Jerusalem (who would become Patriarch of Jerusalem in 634 AD) voiced disapproval of the Monothelite formula but this disapproval had not reached Rome by early 634 when a letter from Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople reached Pope Honorius. In his letter, Patriarch Sergius told the Pope that the Monothelite formula had helped reconcile the Monophysites and the important Churches of Alexandria and Antioch. The letter also acknowledged that there were objections from Jerusalem and that as Patriarch of Constantinople; he would drop the usage of the phrase “one operation/will” of Christ if others would drop the insistence of “two operations/wills” of Christ. Pope Honorius’s letter of reply stated that it was better to not debate the question of “one operation” or “two operations” in Christ at this time as in any case, there could be no opposing wills in him since he always did the will of his Father.
With respect to Pope Honorius’s letter, Carroll writes (p. 224) “Somehow, through linguistic or intellectual incapacity or a culpable carelessness or timidity, the Pope entirely missed the point that even to talk about a man without a human will is philosophical nonsense and doctrinal heresy. A man without a will is not a man. If Christ had no human will He was not a man, but God only, and the Monophysites were right.
Papal infallibility was not involved, because the error was not one of ex cathedra teaching binding on all Christians, but a dangerous failure to teach at a critical moment in a major theological controversy. Of such a failure, the Pope was clearly guilty. Forty seven years later, he was to be condemned for it-—The only Pope ever to suffer such a condemnation.”
Around 642 AD, the Monothelite heresy began to be supported by the emperors of Byzantine who saw it as a political tool to reconcile the Monophysite Christians, all of who lived in the Byzantine Empire that was now being challenged by Islam. All of Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople’s successors were Monotheletes. When Theodore, a Greek, became Bishop of Rome, he had the ability due to a knowledge of the language to understand clearly the Monothelite heresy, wrote a letter to the Patriarch of Constantinople stating Monotheleteism is heretical. Patriarch Paul of Constantinople reacted by throwing the Papal representatives in jail and destroying the Pope’s Church in Constantinople. In 649, Martin, who had been Pope Theodore’s legate to Constantinople, became Bishop of Rome (Pope). In 649, Pope Martin called a council to Rome to deal with the Monothelite heresy and some 105 Bishops came, including the Bishops from Jerusalem who read Patriarch Sophronius’s letters against the Monotheletes. The Council condemned Monotheleteism, all of its original proponents who had proposed the doctrine, and the current leader of it (Patriarch Paul) who had joined with the Byzantine emperors to push it in the Empire. Pope Honorius was not condemned in the Council.
Over the next 25 years, Monothelite doctrines where still held by Constantinople and the emperors, due to the need politically ally themselves with the Monophysites, as Islam and Byzantium were now fighting constantly. In 678, the Byzantine Emperor proposed to Pope Donus that a Council of the entire Church be called to finally resolve the Monothelite crisis. In 680, The Church of Rome in Holy week had a local Synod and reiterated the findings of the Western Council in 649 led by Pope Martin that had rejected the Monothelite formula and once again stated the Church of Rome’s position. So, even before the Council, two clear positions had been taken by the Church of Rome. The Pope sent a letter to the Emperor reminding him of the inerrancy of the Church of Rome “in teaching Doctrine” as it had never deviated from the orthodox Apostolic Tradition. By the time the Council in Constantinople ended in September 681 AD, some 174 Bishops were present. The proponents of the Monothelite formula were challenged to find evidence that “clearly supported there position”. All the letters from the Patriarch’s of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, etc, were presented, by a monk named Marcarius of Antioch, as well as the letter from Pope Honorius. However, the Patriarch’s of Constantinople had already been condemned by Rome in 649 AD and there was no statement of clear support in Pope Honorius’s letter; on the other hand, there was no clear rejection. As Carroll states, clearly Pope Honorius had left the matter open. So, the Council then included him on the list of heretics.
So some 40 years after his death, the Council condemned Pope Honorius personally, even though he had never taught the doctrine, and the Church of Rome, which condemned the Monotheletes way back in 649 AD, did not condemn him since he did not “Define anything”. So Pope St. Leo II, when the decrees of the Sixth Council at Constantinople (680-681 AD) were to be confirmed by the Pope, Pope Leo II made it clear to Bishops in Spain and the Emperor that the Church of Rome never “taught Monotheleteism” and that Pope Honorius “had not endorsed Patriarch Sergius’s Monothelite views”, but he only refrained from condemning them. As Warren Carroll notes (p. 254), when writing the Byzantine Emperor, Pope Honorius was condemned because “he permitted the immaculate faith to be subverted”. Carroll notes that when writing to the Spanish Bishops, Pope St. Leo II states “Honorius was condemned for not at once extinguishing the flames of heresy, but for fanning them by his negligence”.
Warren Carroll sums up the Monothelite crisis (p. 254) by stating “Despite all of this, the fact remains that no decree of a council has effect in the Catholic Church unless and until it is confirmed by the reigning Pope, and only in the form that he confirms it. There is no “supreme law” prescribing how the Pope shall designate his confirmation. Pope Honorius, therefore, was never condemned by heresy by the supreme Church authority, but only for negligence allowing heresy to spread and grow, when he should have denounced it.; for this is all Pope Leo II ever said in announcing the confirmation of the acts of the council and explaining to the bishops of the Western church and the Catholic Kings of the West the meaning of what he had confirmed.”
Jaroslav Pelikan in Volume 2 of The Christian Tradition: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, which was written while he was a Protestant (Lutheran), also goes into the Monothelite crisis. Later in his life, Pelikan would enter into the Eastern Orthodox Church, which was the Church of his ancestors as he was of Slovakian and Serbian ancestry. Still, but he always hoped that West and East would re-unite and said as much when Pope John Paul II died. One gathers when reading his works, as I have, that his studies of Patristics brought about a respect for the Latin Church and Rome that he perhaps did not have as a Lutheran. His op-ed piece in the nytimes clearly expressed a desire for Rome and the East to return to Full Communion.
In the section of Volume 2 “The Orthodoxy of Old Rome” (pp. 148-150), Pelikan reminds his readers of the “supreme example of orthodoxy of Rome in the period covered in Volume 1, the Catholic Tradition”, and in particular the role of Pope St. Leo were at the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) the council Fathers stated “Peter has spoken through Leo”. Pelikan further notes that Rome had been on the side that emerged victorious from one controversy after another, and eventually it became clear that the side which Rome chose was the one that would emerge victorious. In the two dogmatic issues that we have addressed thus far, the doctrine of the person of Christ and the question of images in the Church, the orthodoxy of Rome was a prominent element, in the first of these perhaps the decisive element (p. 150).
So Pelikan discusses the case of Pope Honorius in the context of the previous discussion I cited above. He notes, correctly, that the case of Pope Honorius, was considered the strongest obstacle to the definition of Papal Infallibility even at the time of Vatican I (1870 AD). Pelikan cites the same sources as Warren Carroll does and goes into the case of Pope Honorius in detail. Pelikan draws a conclusion similar to Carroll and writes (p. 151) “If we distinguish between Monoenergism, the doctrine of one action in Christ, and Monotheletism, the doctrine of one will in Christ, Honorius must be identified with the latter but not the former, while many, perhaps most, who held to either doctrine held to both. Pelikan note that when faced with the question of one action or two, he (Honorius) had stressed one agent, the Lord Jesus Christ, who carried out the divine as well as the human actions through the humanity that was united to the Logos. Pelikan further notes that the question of one action or two actions was insoluble and thus was ruled out of discussion. So by stating “one agent”, who is Christ, “one action” was not explicitly stated. So Pope Honorius’s actions were based on not making it seem like Christ had “two competing wills”. Still, his failure to clearly reject Monothelitism makes it possible to explain why he was a Monothelete, and not to deny that he was one. In sum, the Council of Constantinople in 681 condemned the letter Pope Honorius and the Patriarchs of Constantinople (e.g. Sergius) and then describes how Pope St. Leo, while not condemning Honorius, did state that he had allowed for the Monothelete heresy to pollute the Apostolic Faith.
Pelikan goes back and states, as Carroll noted, that Pope Martin in 649 AD had condemned the Monotheletes’ and Honorius was not on the list. So as Pelikan puts it, while Honorius had agreed with the Monotheletes (Carroll does not come to that conclusion), Pope Martin when he confirmed the decrees at the Council of Rome in 649 AD, he could state that the we (Church of Rome) “that is, the pontiffs of this apostolic see, have not permitted them to spread this [error], or to steal the treasure of the faith’ (p. 153). Pelikan states, the case of Honorius apart, Pope Martin’s claim for Old Rome was borne out by record. What Rome decided in opposition to Monotheletism, in 649 and again in 680, was what the orthodox, catholic, and ecumenical church decided, in council assembled, in 681. Peter was sill speaking through the mouth of the Pope (p. 154)
In closing, the evidence presented from both Warren Carroll and Jaraslov Pelikan supports the notion that Pope Honorius did not “condemn the Monothelete heresy” when he first found out about it, and he may have agreed with it personally (although we don’t know that for a fact). However, what we do know is the following: 1) Pope Honorius did not teach the Monothelete doctrine via a Papal Letter that demanded “Full assent of the entire Church and Faithful” or 2) Pope Honorius did not call a Synod or Council that taught the Monothelete doctrine. We also know that the Church of Rome, when it chose to speak, spoke definitively against it in 649 AD at the Western Council in Rome called by Pope Martin and again at a Synod of Rome during Holy Week in 680 AD, some 6 months before the Council of Constantinople started in the fall of 680.
Finally (and I am speaking as a loyal son of Rome and make no apologies for it), thanks for the opportunity for me to show that Christ’s promises to St. Peter (Mt. 16:16-19) and his specific prayers for St. Peter, “I have prayed for you that your faith many not fail and when you have been converted, confirm your brethren” (c.f. Luke 22: 32) and commands for St. Peter to “Feed my sheep” (c.f. John 21: 17) as recorded in Sacred Scripture are still true today as the orthodox faith of the Apostles, which came from Christ, is still being protected and defended by the successor of St. Peter, currently Pope Benedict XVI. Using the language of the Council at Chalcedon (451 AD), “Peter is still speaking today through Pope Benedict.”
Why do present day Apologists find it necessary to "explain" why a clear cut declaration by the 6th Ecumenical Council of a pronouncement of anethema against Pope Honorius for the crime of "Heresy" doesn't really mean what is clearly written?
Men who presume to call themselves "pope" are either infallible or fallible regarding the faith of the RCC. There's no such thing as a "semi-infallibility," except perhaps when it suits a vacant argument.
Links generally suffice.
Nonstop obfuscation and distortion of Catholic beliefs by anti-Catholic bigots can have that effect. Also, anyone made dizzy by grammar is likely too stupid to understand the most basic concepts of anything.
...when what it teaches and believes changes from moment to moment.
You bear false witness.
Some folks are not going to enjoy so thorough and comprehensive a post. It tends to put the lie to their distortions. Then too, their lips get tired just reading it.
Just as an aside...IIRC Warren Carroll (whom you mention as a “Catholic historian”) is a convert to the Catholic Church. Perhaps someone can verify this for me.
I was privileged to attend one of his seminars on Church history quite a few years ago. It was an extraordinary
seminar, as he is an excellent speaker and very knowledgable.
His wife has some fine books to her credit as well.
My previous post was from Warren Carroll’s “The Building of Christendom: A History of Christdendom Vol. 2”, published by Christendom Press (1987) and Jaroslav’ Pelikan’s “The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine Volume 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) published by the University of CHicago Press (1974).
As a result, I am happy to inform you that nothing that I posted in the previous post was “cut and paste” as neither of those books, to the best of my knowledge, are on the web.
Good Day
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