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.
Not sure how the Roman Catholic can ignore this. The Catholic has to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.
There should have been no such thing as "Roman Pontiff" among the Christian Church, in the first place. That's the problem -- right there.
Pontiff -- Pontifex, what's the difference? (look it up for your own selves, I'm sick and tired of working my tail off for a bunch of FOOLS!)
Rather, it is Catholics who say we are to uncritically follow a man - the pope and the magisterium under him - rather than our judgment of what the "inerrant word of God" is or means.
...in all cases there is a margin left for the exercise of faith in the word of the Church...in all cases the immediate motive in the mind of a Catholic for his reception of them is, not that they are proved to him by Reason or by History, but because Revelation has declared them by means of that high ecclesiastical Magisterium which is their legitimate exponent.” — John Henry Newman, “A Letter Addressed to the Duke of Norfolk on Occasion of Mr. Gladstone's Recent Expostulation.”
“All that we must do [as must be patent enough now] is to submit our judgment and conform our beliefs to the authority Almighty God has set up on earth to teach us; this, and nothing else.”
“Absolute, immediate, and unfaltering submission to the teaching of God's Church on matters of faith and morals-----this is what all must give..”
“The Vicar of Christ is the Vicar of God; to us the voice of the Pope is the voice of God. This, too, is why Catholics would never dream of calling in question the utterance of a priest in expounding Christian doctrine according to the teaching of the Church;”
“He is as sure of a truth when declared by the Catholic Church as he would be if he saw Jesus Christ standing before him and heard Him declaring it with His Own Divine lips.”
“..our act of confidence and of blind obedience is highly honoring to Almighty God,..” —“Henry G. Graham, "What Faith Really Means", (Nihil Obstat:C. SCHUT, S. T.D., Censor Deputatus, Imprimatur: EDM. CANONICUS SURMONT, D.D.,Vicarius Generalis. WESTMONASTERII, Die 30 Septembris, 1914 )]
"The intolerance of the Church toward error, the natural position of one who is the custodian of truth, her only reasonable attitude makes her forbid her children to read or to listen to heretical controversy, or to endeavor to discover religious truths by examining both sides of the question. This places the Catholic in a position whereby he must stand aloof from all manner of doctrinal teaching other than that delivered by his Church through her accredited ministers."
The reason of this stand of his is that, for him, there can be no two sides to a question which for him is settled; for him, there is no seeking after the truth: he possesses it in its fulness, as far as God and religion are concerned. His Church gives him all there is to be had; all else is counterfeit... (John H. Stapleton, Explanation of Catholic Morals, Chapters XIX, XXIII. the consistent believer (1904); Nihil Obstat. Remy Lafort, Censor Librorum. Imprimatur, John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York )
it is quite foreign to everyone bearing the name of a Christian to trust his own mental powers with such pride as to agree only with those things which he can examine from their inner nature, and to imagine that the Church, sent by God to teach and guide all nations, is not conversant with present affairs and circumstances; or even that they must obey only in those matters which she has decreed by solemn definition as though her other decisions might be presumed to be false or putting forward insufficient motive for truth and honesty. Quite to the contrary, a characteristic of all true followers of Christ, lettered or unlettered, is to suffer themselves to be guided and led in all things that touch upon faith or morals by the Holy Church of God through its Supreme Pastor the Roman Pontiff, who is himself guided by Jesus Christ Our Lord. - CASTI CONNUBII, ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI; http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121930_casti-connubii.html
But obedience must not limit itself to matters which touch the faith: its sphere is much more vast: it extends to all matters which the episcopal power embraces ...
when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go, and in what things he is to be obeyed ; when we love the Pope, we do not say that he has not spoken clearly enough, almost as if he were forced to repeat to the ear of each one the will clearly expressed so many times not only in person, but with letters and other public documents ; we do not place his orders in doubt, adding the facile pretext of those unwilling to obey – that it is not the Pope who commands, but those who surround him; we do not limit the field in which he might and must exercise his authority ; we do not set above the authority of the Pope that of other persons, however learned, who dissent from the Pope, who, even though learned, are not holy, because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope. (Pope Saint Pius X, Allocution Vi ringrazio to priests on the 50th anniversary of the Apostolic Union, November 18, 1912, as found at: (“Love the Pope! ” – no ifs, and no buts: For Bishops, priests, and faithful, Saint Pius X explains what loving the Pope really entails.)- http://christorchaos.com/?q=content/choosing-ignore-pope-leo-xiii-and-pope-saint-pius-x
While submission may not apply to everything a pope says, yet it is required for far more than only ex cathedra statements, and discerning the different magisterial levels and thus the varying degrees of submission is a matter subjerct to interpretation, which is what faithful RCs want to avoid. Thus the response of outsider facing this:
Boy. No disrespect intended...and I mean that honestly...but my head spins trying to comprehend the various classifications of Catholic teaching and the respective degrees of certainty attached thereto. I suspect that the average Catholic doesn't trouble himself with such questions, but as to those who do (and us poor Protestants who are trying to get a grip on Catholic teaching) it sounds like an almost impossible task.
The solution for which is cultic, just obey and don't question:
Praxis [practice] is quite simple for faithful Catholics: give your religious assent of intellect and will to Catholic doctrine, whether it is infallible or not. That's what our Dogmatic Constitution on the Church demands, that's what the Code of Canon Laws demand, and that is what the Catechism itself demands. Heb 13:17 teaches us to "obey your leaders and submit to them." This submission is not contingent upon inerrancy or infallibility. - http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?p=1565864#post1565864
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
No, it simply means that (only) some Catholics choose past church teaching as they understand it, in contrast to this pope, who was "unanimously" elected by your leadership, which you are to follow, rather than acting like evangelicals, and ascertaining the validity of teaching based upon examination of the warrant for it.
Many RCs also reject other modern popes and part of modern teaching such as in and after V2, and whether this is the case or only the current pope and liberal leadership, the reality is that as much as they want to deny it, RCs engage in much interpretation, from just what valid church teaching is, to what level it belongs to, to what manner of submission is required, to its meaning. And even to who a valid pope is.
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.
Well, you also had this:
Cardinal Bellarmine:
"Some years before the rise of the Lutheran and Calvinistic heresy, according to the testimony of those who were then alive, there was almost an entire abandonment of equity in ecclesiastical judgments; in morals, no discipline; in sacred literature, no erudition; in divine things, no reverence; religion was almost extinct. (Concio XXVIII. Opp. Vi. 296- Colon 1617, in “A History of the Articles of Religion,” by Charles Hardwick, Cp. 1, p. 10,)
• The Avignon Papacy (1309-76) relocated the throne to France and was followed by the Western Schism (1378-1417), with three rival popes excommunicating each other and their sees. Referring to the schism of the 14th and 15th centuries, Cardinal Ratzinger observed,
"For nearly half a century, the Church was split into two or three obediences that excommunicated one another, so that every Catholic lived under excommunication by one pope or another, and, in the last analysis, no one could say with certainty which of the contenders had right on his side. The Church no longer offered certainty of salvation; she had become questionable in her whole objective form--the true Church, the true pledge of salvation, had to be sought outside the institution.
"It is against this background of a profoundly shaken ecclesial consciousness that we are to understand that Luther, in the conflict between his search for salvation and the tradition of the Church, ultimately came to experience the Church, not as the guarantor, but as the adversary of salvation. (Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, head of the Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith for the Church of Rome, “Principles of Catholic Theology,” trans. by Sister Mary Frances McCarthy, S.N.D. (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1989) p.196).