Replies

“The Church doctrine, the Catechism says that the Pope is Infallible.”

Papal Infallibility is a limited thing. It does not make anyone a god nor does believing in it make someone into a god. Papal Infallibility only happens because of the Holy Spirit.

“Who, but God, is infallible?”

You are. I am. Just not all the time. If you ever said, “Trump is going to win in 2016!” that was an infallibly true statement was it not?

It is clear that the issue is not papal infallibility but your apparent misunderstanding of it.

Infallible only under tightly circumscribed circumstances. That infallibility was defined doctrinally at the FIRST Vatican Council in the middle of the 19th century. It was first used by Pope Pius IX to declare that conciliar declarations, approved by the pope are infallible.

It was used by Pope Pius IX to declare that the Blessed Virgin Mary was conceived without the stain of original sin on her soul. As a practical matter, that meant that she would never die and never suffer the pains of childbirth since those were punishments imposed for original sin which was otherwise (than Mary and Jesus Christ) the common lot of mankind as to death and of women as to bringing forth their children in travail. This doctrine as to Mary is known as the Immaculate Conception and was revealed by Mary in a vision granted to Bernadette Soubirous at Lourdes.

It was most recently used by Pope Pius XII to declare that the Blessed Virgin Mary was assumed, body and soul, into heaven. This is known as the Assumption.

The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption were long believed by most Catholics before being defined as dogma by those two popes.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church which I do not have easily on hand, defines the mandatory terms for what is called papal infallibility. The pope must specifically invoke that infallibility, speaking from the Throne of Peter as Supreme Pontiff. There may be additional requirements.

In the instances cited above, Pope Pius IX and Pope Pius XII were infallible. God is, of course, infallible but He is not alone in His infallibility. He is ALWAYS infallible. Popes are, on rare occasions (three so far) infallible. Fortunately Frankie the Apostate has never invoked infallibility.

"Infallibility" is simply the ability to teach without error. It is not sinless perfection, the correct term for which would be "impeccability".

The human authors of Scripture were infallible when they wrote Holy Writ. Actually, they possessed the higher gift of "inspiration". Infallibility is the merely negative charism of being preserved from teaching error. Inspiration is the positive charism of being able to teach precisely what God wishes to be taught. Inspiration implies infallibility, since God could never wish for error to be taught.

The Pope can teach infallibly (a/k/a, exercise the "extraordinary Papal magisterium") only if four defined conditions are all met:

He must be speaking to the whole church. A private letter, a formal act disciplining an individual, or off the cuff remarks to a journalist, don't qualify.
He must be speaking in his office as Pope, not, e.g., as a private teacher or as the Bishop of Rome
He must be teaching definitively, that is, requiring Catholics to believe/profess something under pain of heresy
And the "something" must be a doctrine concerning faith and morals

These conditions aren't met very often. Except in canonizing saints (which is always an infallible act), Pope Francis has never met them, and probably never will.