To: Mrs. Don-o
If he never says anything that is infallible, then how do you know when he is being infallible?
47 posted on
03/04/2015 3:27:49 PM PST by
ansel12
(Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
To: ansel12
"If he never says anything that is infallible, then how do you know when he is being infallible?" Let me reiterate that infallibility is not a positive power of the Pope; it is a negative protection of the Church. Protection from what or from whom? Protection from the errors of popes!
It is a guarantee that, whackadoo as an individual pope may sometimes be in his activities and his opinions, he shall not have the power to impose them on the Church and thus draw the Church into error. (If he were able to draw the whole Church into his mistakes, that would be the "gates of hell" prevailing against the Church, which Our Lord promises will never happen.)
The conditions required for infallible papal teaching are as follows (from the First Vatican Council, 1870):
- "the Roman Pontiff"
- "speaks ex cathedra" ("that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority...."), and
- "he defines"
- "that a doctrine concerning faith or morals"
- "must be held by the whole Church".
For a teaching by a pope or ecumenical council to be recognized as infallible, it must be:
- A decision of the supreme teaching authority of the Church (pope or College of Bishops)
- Concerning a doctrine of faith or morals
- Binding the universal Church
- proposed as something to hold firmly and immutably.
That last condition is fulfilled by words such as "By the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by Our own authority, We declare, pronounce and define the doctrine . . . to be revealed by God and as such to be firmly and immutably held by all the faithful."
50 posted on
03/04/2015 5:10:12 PM PST by
Mrs. Don-o
(Save us from the fires of hell; lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy)
To: ansel12
Pope Benedict XVI: "The Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know."
Pope John XXIII: "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible."
51 posted on
03/04/2015 5:11:27 PM PST by
Mrs. Don-o
(Save us from the fires of hell; lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy)
To: ansel12
Pope Benedict XVI: "The Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know."
Pope John XXIII: "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible."
53 posted on
03/04/2015 5:24:42 PM PST by
Mrs. Don-o
(Save us from the fires of hell; lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy)
To: ansel12
If he never says anything that is infallible, then how do you know when he is being infallible? If a tree doesn't fall in a forest, how do you know what sound it makes? ;-)
If he never says anything that is infallible, then he is never "being infallible," by definition.
62 posted on
03/05/2015 5:42:34 AM PST by
Campion
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson