As a Roman Catholic though, how do you decide which is correct?
Unam Sanctam and other papal decrees do not appear to give the laity the ability to question the pope.
Unam Sanctam and other papal decrees do not appear to give the laity the ability to question the pope.
Thanks for your interest in Catholicism.
A constant criticism of Catholicism voiced by the naysayers, especially in this forum, is that Catholics are unthinking tools who uncritically follow a man rather than the "inerrant word of God". We're told that Catholics are bound to slavishly obey whatever the Pope says, irrespective of whether it's in conflict with revealed truth or not.
The events of the past four years make it clear that this line of thinking is false. The reaction to Francis' attempted destruction of Catholic teaching and pastoral practice demonstrates that Catholics follow a faith and not a man and I might have expected some sort of acknowledgement of this fact from you folks but on reflection, that was probably a little naive. There will always be an angle, I guess. There will always be something with which to find fault. Had we been uncritically swallowing everything Francis has said and done, we'd be copping it for that, too.
To answer the question, we know which teaching is correct thanks to that much maligned pillar (at least by non-Catholics) of Catholicism; Tradition (with a capital "T"). This is our defense against the likes of Francis. As to how we go about fighting this battle, I have to say that I'm not sure since we are truly in unchartered waters right now. We have the unprecedented situation of a Pope who quit (apparently) living co-temporally with his replacement who is attempting to wreak havoc. There is no playbook for this situation.
Whatever you think of Catholicism, I'm here to tell you that you have front row seats to events of absolutely historical importance.