Yeah, the Pope has to confer with and be approved by a council of bishops before any statement can be deemed “infallible.” It’s not like the Pope can just decide what’s infallible or not.
According to the relevant statute, ex-cathedra infallibility applies when there is a decree on “a doctrine of faith or morals to be held by the whole Church”. This is generally understood to refer to the theological side of things.
As David Simmons mentioned, for almost everything on which guidance is needed the Church prefers to refer to 1900 years’ worth of precedent – Scripture, tradition, the writings of the Church Fathers, proclamations of the historic Councils, writings of Catholic theologians, etc.
Notice, Shade, that the CathEnc quote also mentions the decree need not be ratified by the whole Church. But yes, in the Real World it would be unlikely that he would act totally unilaterally or pull out of his hat some doctrine out of deep left field – if only because the structures of power in the institution would be very careful to not let any loose-cannon type get anywhere near Peter’s Chair. Of course they will say that’s a result of the guidance of the Holy Spirit… :dubious:
The rarity of modern-time “infallible” decrees – and the apparently arcane Mariological subject matter – must be itself in part a device to minimize the possibility of a future reversal.
Because we then would never have any choices. If I met someone who had no choice but to love me, is it then real love? God has made it that we can choose not to sin, but there are times when we all do. Not only that, but when God created man, all he was required to do was follow one rule, which they didn’t.
No, that’s not true. Please don’t post incorrect information. It’s a particularly glaring error when the very link that’s posted in the OP says:
When the Pope speaks as spiritual head of the universal Church, about some doctrine of faith or morals, clearly expressing his intent to teach with all the fullness and finality of his supreme Apostolic authority and to bind the whole Church with that specific pronouncement, then he speaks infalliably. There is no requirement that he “…confer with and be approved by a council of bishops.”
OK?
- Rick
Presumably catholics feel this is impossible.
It’s an unnofficial WAG, but surely what would actually happen, if there was an apparent contradiction is ex cathedra announcements is the same when there’s an appernt contradiction in the bible - athiests go “AHA!” and catholics/(literalist?) christians discover one was misinterpreted. 
Its impossible. The will of God would prevent it.
I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.
Or have I been whooshed?
I did say catholics would say this is impossible. Obviously non-catholics would disagree.
And I did specifically say ‘apparent’ contradiction. Is it not possible that even if God is omniscient, and truthful, and directly authorizes ex cathedra statements, that one would be misinterprited, mistranslated or misrepresented? That’s happened to the word of Jesus, hasn’t it?
Absolutely. There is a basic teaching that “truth cannot contradict truth” – which in the case of the RCC, it helps that it is not a literalist Church so “interpretation” is a matter for trained professionals.
But like I said, it’s designed so that the likelihood of an “infallible” decree being reversed is tiny.
No, not particularly, although some Catholics were uneasy about it being defined ex cathedra. The official Catholic line would be that Pius XII ticked the infallibity box precisely because the issue was uncontroversial. One could even argue that he was responding to popular pressure. The context for the decision was a long-running petitioning campaign which had asked successive popes to proclaim the Assumption as infallible doctrine. That campaign was one aspect of the distinctive strand within modern Catholicism which has sought to assert/re-assert devotion to the Virgin Mary. A more cynical interpretation would be that the campaigners wanted the decision as an expression of the sort of hardline traditionalism that Pius XII was only too happy to provide.
Stating that only a very small portion of the Pope’s rulings are infallible yet acting as if all are. I was hearing a lot of “the pope said it, so if you don’t agree you’re going to hell.” there was a tendency to treat as infalible pretty much any teaching that had been around for a long time.
Got it - I think.
If the same person was both stating that he understood that ex cathedra pronouncements had only been made twice, AND stating that any pronouncement from the Pope was infalliable, then I do, indeed, see the inconsistency.
- Rick
I used to think the Pope was fallible, but now that he thinks that Bush is the Antichrist, I think he is right on:
“Bush’s blood lust, his repeated commitment to
Christian beliefs, and his constant references to
“evil doers,” in the eyes of many devout Catholic
leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one
warned about in the Book of Revelations - the
anti-Christ. People close to the Pope claim that
amid these concerns, the Pontiff wishes he was
younger and in better health to confront the
possibility that Bush may represent the person
prophesized in Revelations.”
So why did Jesus die? And why does it matter just how the state of no longer living comes about?
Svt4Him
Are you paying attention at all? Or are you just flipping to the appropriate page of your “Answers to Atheist questions” booklet? If I wanted to read Evangelist Christian Answer #27, I’d get the booklet myself. Your response was rude and condescending, and if you don’t have anything to contribute other than the standard mindless dogma that most atheists have already heard ad nauseum, please just remain quiet rather than fooling yourself into thinking you have illuminated the issue.
The question to which he was responding (“Why couldn’t God just keep humanity from sinning”) wasn’t exactly fleshed out. I agree a link to Can of Worms #17: Free Will, might have helped but it looked like a fair if brief summary.
FTR I’m an athiest, but I think I can provide the flip answer to So why did Jesus die?, namely Can of Worms #3: To pay for the rest of humanity’s sins, and allow us into heaven if we accept him as our savior.
The reason that Catholicism teaches that Mary was sinless is because she had to be in order to become the vessel that would carry God-to become the Mother of Christ.
But in the context of the thread, it completely missed the point of the question: why could God make Mary sinless if He can’t make everyone sinless? If one gives the “free will” answer, then that prompts the obvious question of whether Mary had free will.
So why have Jesus die? Why not have Mary die? And besides, this misses the point of my question: isn’t it true that even if all sinners die, that doesn’t mean that no nonsinners do?
OK, that is a very good question, to which I have no idea. Anyone?
However if it had been phrased that way to start with it would have been a lot more likely to get a serious answer. I know, I post fliply too often myself.
You don’t mean have Mary pay for your sins, do you? That’d be really unfair on her, surely?
I’m afraid I don’t know what the deal is about entering heaven without dying (is that what happened to Jesus the second time?) I was just pointing out a potential reason why, even if people without sin wouldn’t die, Jesus would.
Well, as I understand it, death enters the world not thorugh your personal sinfulness, but through Original Sin – the “fallen” condition of Mankind, which is present from conception. Not that the unfallen human was intrinsecally immortal – he was still perishable physical matter, he still needed to eat and to have a mate: but he was in perfect harmony with God and THAT maintained his life. Man freely chose to break the bond (or so they say)
In Catholic doctrine, at the Final Judgement everyone who ever lived experiences the Resurrection and once again have physical bodies (though transformed in nature), so that Eternal Life is experienced in the fullness of being human. Mary (and apparently Elijah) got a privileged exemption from the intervening steps, and went directly to experience Eternal Life at the end of their terrestrial lifespans as a special favour.
Now, the Church already had the doctrine of the I. C., by which Mary, (this is where it gets tricky) by retroactive application of the saving grace of Jesus, gets conceived without even Original Sin in the first place. This is a particularly glaring case of why It’s Good To Be The God – you apparently can violate causality: Mary at around age 15 freely agrees to be the mother of the Christ, who 33 years later will undergo the Death and Resurrection, and as a result of that makes it so that at her own conception some nearly 16 years earlier the taint of Original Sin was not attached to her zygote cell.
Or at least that’s as close as I got before the blinding headaches set in.
However this does not make her immortal any more than it does Jesus. What it did was create an expectation among many of the Faithful that the same way that the natural start of her temporal lifespan was granted an exemption from the norm, so would the natural end of it.
Jesus’ death, of course, was necessary for the whole atonement process and to prove he was truly human.
Shade
I think that it was rather obvious to anyone paying attention to the thread. Had TVAA asked “Why couldn’t God simply keep all humanity from sinning?”, then I could see addressing just that question. But preceding the question with the word “Then”, right after Bricker said that Mary was sinless, creates a clear implication that TVAA was not simply asking “Why couldn’t God simply keep all humanity from sinning?” but “How is God not being so able consistent with what you (Bricker) just said?”
Why would it be any more unfair than having Jesus pay my sins?
JRDelirious
So why was there no need to prove Mary’s humanity?
OK, I take your point here. Sorry. Let’s hope we get an answer to the question now…
Because Jesus chose to do it, and Mary didn’t. What am I missing here.