Absolutely. The Pope speaks inerrantly when he declares specifically that he’s speaking inerrantly. See Papal Infallibility:
To Trad_C:
What Marian apparitions do or don’t you accept as valid, and why?
(Full disclosure here- even as a child, I’ve been enamored by the story of our Lady at Fatima. I’m also pretty impressed by the Medjegorje (sp?) visionaries. I came close to reverting back to Catholicism during grad school & did pray the Rosary daily for about a year as a Blue Army of Fatima member.)
What Catholic writers have you found most helpful in your walk?
(Fulton Sheen devotee here!)
Do you watch a lot of EWTN & if so, who?
Even with free will God would know ahead of time how Job would act and why God would cater to a monster he created is something to wonder about. It seems God would punish the less intelligent human with a supposedly intelligent Monster that God created, and then allowed this monster to devour His children.
Monavis
I hope this ins’t out of place, but do you believe the sun spun and came closer to earth as some of the so called witnesses claim?
Monavis
Interesting these religious discussions. Bricker believes the pope speaks with the infallible word of God, Dangermom believed the late Gordon B. Hinckley is a prophet who speaks with a direct authority of God. So who had unquestioned divine authority Karol Wojtyla or G Hinckley?
I would like to bring this up again if I may. This seems to indicate only those who are ignorant of the CC have a possibility of salvation but those who are aware of the CC and it’s teachings are doomed.
The way it was explained on EWTN was like this. It is only in the most extreme circumstances imaginable that a non Catholics had be saved. The CC holds the possibility that God in his mercy can save non Catholics through Baptism of Desire in some remote extreme conditions. It is an error that all are saved, if so there would be no need of the missionary activities of the Church. Since the CC is founded on natural law it is impossible for thinking humans to reject the true church if it is explained properly. In a sense one can not reject the CC because it follows natural law and to do so rejects the common sense of natural law that all humans possess. Willful ignorance is no excuse.
Is this correct?
I do think I get the idea of what Papal infallibility means (I went around and checked a few places including Wikipedia to make sure). I don’t have any problem with the belief that the Pope can speak inerrantly, other than to disagree. I just don’t understand how a person could say both that there are times when he speaks inerrantly, times when what he says is guaranteed truth, and also that it is possible they (and he) are wrong. Surely inerrancy obliges that you cannot agree to even the *possibility * of him being wrong?
Why?
I have an idea, a model, of how things are. That model may be wrong. I don’t believe it is, but I accept the possiblity.
That model includes the idea that the Pope may be guided by the Holy Spirit. When he feels himself guided by the Holy Spirit, he speaks inerrantly. Otherwise, he’s like me: using his best judgment, training, and experience to discern truths, and offering them up, with the acknowledgment that they might be in error.
So – the model may be wrong. If the model’s right, then what the Pope says can be wrong, except when he says, definitively, that he’s right.
Not seeing any contradictions here.
Because I would say accepting the idea that you could be wrong outside of your model means that you shouldn’t accept inerrancy inside it. That accepting that the model may be wrong means that anything within that model cannot be believed to be 100% certain. You accept the possibility that the model may be wrong, and thus accept the possibility that the Pope could be wrong even when he says, definitively, that he’s right. Accepting the chance of being wrong at one point in a belief system to me would mean that that chance still exists in any further thoughts developed from that point.
Besides, surely if the inerrancy of the Pope is based on the concept of “My model is correct”, then you do not differ in certainty between that and any other facet of your belief system? With that condition in place, all of the individual parts of your model are certainly correct, and inerrancy as a quality is superlative. If we take your approach and not apply the general possibility of incorrectness of the whole of a model to the constituent parts of it, then what makes any other parts of your belief system any less certain than the inerrancy of the Pope?
OK, I think I see the source of the confusion.
Within the context of the model, there is 100% inerrancy.
Since you seem to have based your choice of religion solely on longevity, why didn’t you choose Hinduism?
Ah, fair enough then. Thanks for being able to put it simply when clearly I couldn’t. 
Of course not. I do believe that the Sun appeared to do so from the POV of the Fatima crowd.
Pardon me if this has already been asked; I am stepping in here rather late.
I have a Catholic friend whose house is filled with crucifixes; I mean, that image/figure is everywhere. Why does it need to be? Just curious.
I can answer that one. It doesn’t need to be. Your friend has them everywhere because s/he chooses to do so. There are plenty of Catholic households with nary a crucifix in sight; or in the case of my rite, no icons.
<Alec Mapa>Protection!</AM>
Sorry, I just watched an old standup special of his last night and this was brought up. Mapa is Filipino, and was talking about Filipino Catholics (that they don’t just believe in God, they believe in everything: vampires, ghosts, etc.). He described the house he grew up in, with icons and crucifixes and holy cards and everything on the walls, and how he asked his grandmother why they put all that stuff up. And he imitates her, kind of hissing, “Protection!”
Now that I’ve dissected that joke and made it completely unfunny, I’ll bow out…
Ah. Thank you for your reply.
I want to become a nun or a sister.
Is there any particular order that appeals to you?
I believe in all of the approved apparitions except for La Salette.
I have found that books by Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort and the Franciscans of the Immaculate are very helpful to my spiritual life.
I do not watch EWTN because my television does not receive that channel.