I was reading some information about Papal Infallibility and it struck me that the notion of Papal infallibility in interpreting the intent of God seems a somewhat superheroish attribute to ascribe to a human being chosen by an administrative process. Are the more sophisticated Catholics truly invested in this, belief, and if they are how could you ever criticize the Pope’s opinions about Catholic Church dogma, as many Catholics (including Catholic clerics) do, and still hold him as infallible?
Considering how seldom the Pontiff has spoken ex cathedra, I have no trouble accepting those rare occasions as those in which he is moved by the Holy Spirit.
Now, if we were hearing a new ex cathedra pronouncement once per year, I’d have to re-evaluate my acceptance of the doctrine. I don’t expect that that happen, however.
The last such pronouncement, as I recall, was in 1950, when Pius XII declared that Mary was Assumed bodily into Heaven. The only other pronouncement was the 1854 doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which was the model for the doctrine of papal infallibility when it was announced in 1870.
So it’s not as though the Pope is tossing around infalliable pronouncments left and right.
Well, since as Bricker mentioned, there have been exactly two uses of “real” Papal Infallibility since it was formally codified, the latest was in 1950, and both are about Marian doctrines that do not really interfere with their daily lives, I believe most “educated” Roman Catholics do not particularly have a problem with it.
The “folk” notion of infallibility, that everything the Pope says or even is printed on his office letterhead about anything remotely important has to be The Truth, is dismissed by most educated Catholics (No matter how much Cardinal Ratzinger would like it to be otherwise).
In any case, those persons who are Catholic believers out of true conviction will already profess that there are Truths on the theological realm “that the Church as a whole possesses”, as a result of divine guidance. Remember, if you are a Believer, it’s not just a socal institution, a service organization with an administrative bureaucracy and community activities… it’s the Body Of Christ On Earth. So, a Pope acting as direct mouthpiece of that divine guidance is not a “superhuman” feat of the man, but merely part of an office that is divinely guided.
Which is probably why the Vat-I Council installed specific conditions, terms, and jumping-hoops for “infallibility” to apply. You don’t have an institution survive since Roman times w/o realizing that once in a while there are words of yours that you WILL be forced to eat (or rather, a later administration whose fault it really wasn’t will have to eat them while coming up with a creative explanation as to why it was the other way all along).
This leaves room for plain old dissent on matters doctrinal. NOT MUCH, true, at least compared to what we’re used to in Western academic circles, but that has less to do with “infallibility” than with the reality that the RCC is NOT a democracy nor an open academic forum, but runs on a strict top-down hierarchical authority, that chooses on what subjects they will abide a challenge and up to what limit, and when there is to be a swift smack-down (which in the last couple of centuries has become easier to live through, at least).
The way it was explained to me was as sort of the equivalent of a parliamentary government’s No Confidence vote. When the Pope speaks infallibly, he has to be right, otherwise the entire Church will collapse. Popes take this very seriously, and therefore do not go around claiming to speak ex cathedra just for the joy of it … or at all, really, apart from on the two occasions mentioned above.
Do I believe in it? Nah. But I’m a cafeteria Catholic anyway.
I guess a good question is “If you are capable of being in infalible at some time, why wouldn’t you always be?”
I for one, would always leave my infalible mode if I had the ability to. Why risk being wrong about something if you can just turn on infalibility mode before every time you speak?
So what is it about the idea that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven, that required an ex cathedra pronouncement? Was there a big controversy raging which he wanted to squash?
And if this belief were to be falsified, such as finding her decayed corpse here on Earth, would the Catholic church collapse? This should give archaeologists a goal.
Wouldn’t it be analougous to the U.S. Supreme Court. A decision that the SCOTUS hands down is, by definition, Constitutional, since they are empowered to interpret the Constitution. Couldn’t the Pope’s authority to speak infallably ex cathedra work in a similar fashion that since he is, by definition, the Supreme Pontiff, he is empowered to make infallable statements?
Perhaps, because the guys who have been told they have that authority take it seriously?
Even JP II, who is pretty authoritarian on most issues of church teaching has declined to invoke it. After he declared that there was to be no discussion regarding the ordination of women, Cardinal Ratzinger published a claim that the pope had spoken infallibly, but when asked directly on the point, JP II did not invoke the ex cathedra clause. (Ratzinger, of course, has never retracted his claim, so you can still find the document floating around.)
I suspect that the RCC is going to have to revisit the thing, some day, and put more “nuances” into it. We’ve only been using it for 133 years and we’ve got over 1,900 years of people making mistakes. (If Ratzinger gets to be (or control) the next pope, I will not be surprised if we have some problems in that area.)
The Consitution itself can change through amendments whereas God is generally considered constant.
The Supreme Court has, in a few rare occasions, directly overturned its prior decisions (would happen more often but Buck v Bell just isn’t going to come up again).
Excepting maybe lower court judges, no one is actually forced to act as if they agree with the decision, only obey it.
IMO, this infalibility stuff is nonsense. everytime i start a convo with a conservaitive catholic, they act as if all of canon law and every proclamation is direct form god. I don’t have a problem with this, it is their religion, but i find the inconsistency annoying.
I’m not a Catholic, but it seems to me that your cite essentially says that the Pope is infallible as regards Catholic doctrine. Isn’t this sort of a given?
As has been pointed out, the Pope rarely makes pronouncements of this sort mainly, I think, because such are only rarely needed. My reason for saying this is that I read Crossing The Threshold of Hope and suddenly realized that the Catholic Church has a “position paper” on any subject you care to bring up. No matter what question John Paul II was asked he referred to a document dealing with it that was already at hand. The Pope is far from a free agent, being bound by 2000 years of history and tradition which forms a system based on experience and a need for departures from the system is indeed rare.
I have to echo the earlier question: what was so important about he bodily assumption of Mary? Or perhaps that’s the wrong question. Is there something about the nature of the question of Mary’s assumption, such as that it pertains to events in biblical times, that makes it something appropriate for an ex-cathedra pronouncement?
That the Assumption happened is the natural consequence of Catholic belief in the nature and effect of sin, and in the belief of the conception of Mary without sin, so that the human vessel in which God was made Man would be sinless.
If Mary was preserved, free from sin, by gift of God, then she would not face the consequence of sin - death.
It’s a very important concept, albeit somewhat limited in applicability to the world at large.
But does the Pope speak about only God ex cathedra?
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Well, that begs the question: what if the current (or a future) Pope, speaking ex cathedra says that Mary was not assumed into Heaven. Where does that leave Catholics? Does the latter “ruling” overrule the former? If so, then it’s just like SCOTUS decisions.
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IANAC and certainly IANACScholar, but does a Catholic have to believe that Mary was assumed into Heaven, or can it be said that it is simply the official position of the church?
That doesn’t go to show that it didn’t happen that way, mind you, merely because I don’t know.
Why God permits bad things to happen is central to any number of questions about the nature of God and the universe.
I contend that God is unknowable, and that to answer that question (and its progeny) requires a level of understanding that humans cannot possibly possess.
I can’t find the site now, but an online FAQ gave the impression that a Pope speaking ex cathedra speaks the consensus of a bunch of priests and cardinals, as well as himself, so should not be relaying merely his personal opinion. Supposedly God makes sure this process interprets scripture as it should be.
It’s probably also worth mentioning that astro’s cite says definately that something ex cathedra isn’t written directly by God (presumably as opposed ot the bible?) or even inspired directly by God. It can’t convey any new info, it is merely an interpretation of existing scripture.
