On what theological basis can Roman Catholics defy the Pope?

Factual Questions
1

This is the story that triggered my question.

Let me make it clear straight away that this isn’t about the merits or otherwise of the nuns’ case. I’m genuinely interested in how these nuns could ever challenge or defy the authority of the Pope or his Cardinals and still maintain their faith.

Isn’t one of the foundation stones of their belief the notion that the Pope when speaking on matters of faith and doctrine is the final authority, the representative of Christ on Earth? (Those credentials, if you believe in that sort of thing, are pretty damned impressive!) So how would a Roman Catholic even think of challenging the Pope and Cardinals without destroying the fabric of their faith? The nuns clearly feel the Pope is in error, that the guy they believe Jesus speaks to the Earth through is wrong. But isn’t that tantamount to saying they disagree with Jesus?

Mods, if you think this is better suited to GD then please move it.

2

Catholics can certainly disagree with the Pope. It is only under special circumstances that statements of dogma by the Pope are considered “ex cathedra” and thus considered infallible. I have no idea whether the nuns in question are disagreeing with such dogma.

3

Good question. I used to wonder why “cafeteria Catholics” remain Catholic, since a (the?) major difference between Protestants and Catholics is the authority of the Church. But after scores of internet debates with Christians of all denominations, it’s become pretty clear that most of them have no idea what the tenets of their denominations are, let alone the differences between denominations, and are just continuing in whichever one they grew up with.

But I would think that priests and nuns have given the subject rather more thought than the average internet poster, so I’m interested in an authoritative answer to your question.

4

I’m a very ex-Catholic who has recently read a large book on the history of the papacy, and really the history of the Catholic Church is almost entirely composed of Catholics disagreeing with the Pope, with current Popes disagreeing with previous Popes, and with competing Popes disagreeing about just who is the actual Pope right now anyway.

The thing about Papal infallibility is that it has always been open to question. There have been plenty of Popes who turned out, according to the current version of what the Catholic Church is all about, to have been entirely wrong. The Catholic Church itself revises its version of God’s infallible truth with pretty much every Pope, more or less.

That being the case, Catholics have a very long history of disagreeing with Popes. Catholics have been disagreeing with Papal doctrine since Pope Peter. There’s a kind of cognitive dissonance that goes along with every religion; if you’re going to believe in a religion, you’re already well down the road of believing in things that frankly don’t hold up to critical analysis. So believing that the Pope is Jesus’ spokesman and that the Pope is wrong on some point of doctrine is really no different from believing in a monotheistic religion that worships a trinity.

5

Actually, no. The Pope can speak on faith and doctrine until the sky falls and it doesn’t necessarily mean anything. it’s only on an extremely rare occaision (as in, easily counted even while stretching back two thousand years) That the Pope officially and firmly declares something, and then only after very wide agreement throughout the Church, lay and ordained alike.

There are liberal, conservative priests who line up on both sides of every issues you coudl find anywhere in the world and other ordained ministers. This isn’t really considered a problem as long as people are skewing their principles to match their politics (always a problem everywhere) and aren’t trying to turn their politics into a religion (as in the early Progresive movement in the U.S., such as with Father Coughlin).

As such, the Pope isn’t the final authority, because the authority isn’t his to give or deny.

Mate, that sounds like the start and finish of your education, and so there’s no wonder you miss of a few of the, umm… giant screaming important points.

You don’t actually know that ex Cathedra means, do you? Because there have only been a handful of such statements, and it has never included 99.9(% of what Popes do and have done. Hell, Papal Infallibility has never been open to question because there never was such a thing.

For the most part, there is no Papal Doctrine. There is Catholic Doctines, which Popes can and do influence, but the Church outlives the man. Nor is it, nor ever was it, required that the Pope agree with everything, nor required that every Catholic agree with the Pope provided they actually gave some thought about it and argued their case inside the Church.

:smack: The Pope is not, and never was claimed to be, the spokesman for the divine. I have no idea idea what religion you hail from, but obviously you didn’t pay much attention to it, because you seem to think you were a Catholic. I met Chinese Buddhists with a better understanding of Roman Catholicism.

6

What is the nature of the Pope’s authority? Is he thought to be more learned than other Catholics? Better and more practiced at praying, so he gets more inspired answers? Or what?

7

Source, not nature. He’s the successor of St. Peter, Christ’s chosen leader of the Church. The source of his authority is God.

8

But if he can make mistakes, he doesn’t have the same kind of authority as God. :confused:

9

As noted above, he is considered infallible only when speaking ex cathedra. Otherwise, he’s just another schmo who happens to be pope. Doesn’t mean he can do the NYT crossword puzzle every Sunday without making mistakes.

10

So is it up to him when he speaks ex cathedra? Or do the conclave of cardinals have to all agree first? Another thing, weren’t Councils of equal authority, or even superior, to the Pope at one time?

11

Speaking ex cathedra is entirely up to the pope. However, until the First Vatican Council that ran 1869-1870 this doctrine was not “formally defined.” Since the First Vatican Council the clearest case of the Pope speaking “ex cathedra” was in 1950, in defining the Assumption of Mary as an article of faith in the document “*Munificentissimus Deus.”

*That is the only more or less entirely accepted incident of ex cathedra declaration since the First Vatican Council (when the doctrine of the Pope being able to formally speak with infallibility was specifically defined.)

However, the concept of Papal infallibility did not get invented by the First Vatican Council, but was just formalized then. By analyzing the specifics of various Papal Bulls and proclamations known to us over the past 2,000 years Catholic scholars have identified a handful of instances in which it is generally accepted that the Pope was speaking ex cathedra, which just essentially means that in this specific teaching the Pope was divinely inspired and thus the issue becomes a settled article of faith for all Catholics. Going all the way back to the Council of Chalcedon in 449 AD, there are only 7 instances (including the one in 1950) in which Catholic theologians have generally agreed the Pope spoke ex cathedra, so as you can see it is supremely rare. Meaning on issues/squabbles between religious orders and the Papacy you can be fairly certain that the Pope has not been speaking ex cathedra, and thus there is valid and entirely appropriate room for a dogmatic Catholic to have a disagreement with the Pope.

However, outside of his ability to speak ex cathedra, the Pope also wielded vast power within the Church historically and still does. So the Pope can (and often did, historically) prevail in disputes without having to speak ex cathedra. A sect that disagreed with the Pope could be dissolved, its members branded heretics and excommunicated by the Pope without the Pope ever exercising his ability to speak on articles of faith with “Papal infallibility.”

Aside from ex cathedra statements on articles of faith, there are other special cases in which a Pope is considered to be acting with infallibility. For example in beatifications, it is seen as infallible truth that the Pope is correct in proclaiming that person is in heaven with God.

12

Papal infallibility is quite likely the most widely misunderstood part of Catholicism, among Catholics and non-Catholics alike.

As pointed out by several posters above, “papal infallibility” is extremely narrowly defined, and the number of occasions on which a pope has spoken infallibly is very, very small.

When the current pope is speaking non-infallibly, he’s just another bishop, in this case the bishop of Rome. He certainly has enormous power to influence church teaching, through his appointments of cardinals and of heads of the church bureaucracy, and it’s absolutely true that great weight will be given to his encyclicals and pronouncements. But they’re not infallible, and he’s not infallible except in really, really rare instances (Martin Hyde points out that there have been seven such instances, and I was surprised that the number was that high).

So to disagree with a pope really doesn’t put one at risk of “destroying the fabric of [one’s]faith.” People, including eminent theologians and members of the church hierarchy, all the way down to the rank and file clergy and laypeople, do disagree with popes all the time. They can still be faithful catholics.

There’s another question concerning obedience to the pope. Members of religious orders take vows, which usually include vows of obedience, sometimes specific vows of obedience to the pope (the Jesuits, I believe, take a very specific vow of obedience to the pope).

A good example is that of Robert Drinan, S.J. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives four or five times from Massachusetts. John Paul II at some point directed that priests not hold elective office, and Father Drinan complied.

So someone who really rebels against papal instruction may be breaking a vow. There is a duty of obedience. I don’t know what’s going on with the order of nuns mentioned in the OP, though.

Popes are wrong about stuff all the time. They have been wrong in the past and will be wrong again in the future.

13

Huh? I’m not sure what this sentence means. I’m guessing you’re saying that “a monotheistic religion that worships a trinity” is an oxymoron, and you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. It’s a bit simplistic, and there have been two thousand years’ worth of theological and philosophical explanations of this, but I’ll grant that it’s a tough one. But there’s no analogy between that and “believing that the Pope is Jesus’ spokesman” because Catholics don’t believe that. The Pope is head of the Church. Not the same thing at all.

14

I’ve known Catholics who believe (and don’t believe) all sorts of things that surprised me, so I won’t dispute your authority to speak for them. But one of the Pope’s titles is “Vicar of Christ.” “Vicar” is not a common word in the US, and I would think “representative” before I would think “spokesman,” but “spokesman” isn’t far-fetched. “Vicar of Christ” certainly implies more than the head of the Church (you can find dozens of heads of worldwide ministries on late-night TV).

15

The way many people understand the dogma of Papal Infallibility and what it says are very different.

Let’s leave the history of it aside for a moment. Paraphrased, the Dogma says that “when the Pontifex speaks ex-Cathedra (that is, in representation of the whole Body of the Church and inspired by the Holy Spirit), what he says is true”.

  1. when inspired by the Holy Spirit, a pot of geraniums would tell the truth. It would tell it in a language us humans can’t understand, but that’s not the geraniums’ problem.
  2. In Latin there is a clear distinction between autoritas (what someone has because he has knowledge, such as a lawyer speaking of his country’s legal system or the Child speaking with the rabbis at the Temple) and potestas (what we commonly call authority, that is, the ability to get someone to do what you say they have to). The Pope has no more autoritas than any other theologian; his potestas derives from his being a “bridge” between christians and God. If the people disagree, he’s not representing us. If he’s not representing us, his cathedra is cracked.

Now look at the history. During the Middle Ages, most worldly princes weren’t anywhere near as autocratic as the simplified vision of feudalism would have us believe; negotiation was as much a fact of life for them as for any current member of any Parliament. During the Renaissance and later, Western Europe saw its rulers get more and more power; eventually, this action triggered reactions such as the French Revolution and her children. The 19th Century is, in many countries, a constant back and forth between authoritarian and parliamentary (either moden or traditionalist) tendencies - and the same happened within the Church. What Pius IX wanted was a decree that his word had to be followed as if it was, if you’ll excuse the expression and I’m sure he would never have put it so crudely, the Gospel Truth.

What the bishops gave him was the chopped-off-at-the-knees version.

16

You’re right, of course. I should have said “the Church doesn’t teach” rather than “Catholics don’t believe.”

17

My wife and I had good friends who were Catholic. One day we were walking together on a hill in Switzerland (they are Swiss) and the wife started unloading on my wife how she disliked the pope. After listening to her litany of complaints, My wife said to her: “Gertrud, there is a word that describes you: Protestant”.

18

There’s nothing at all in Catholic doctrine or practices that says that Catholics have to like the Pope.

19

I’ve been an atheist a LOT longer than I was ever a Catholic. In fact I don’t think I ever actually believed any of that nonsense.

My comments were based on talking to actual self-described Catholics about what they believe, not on any misunderstanding of what I think they believe. Many Catholics do believe that the the Pope is supposed to be the infallible spokesman of God. It might not be actual church doctrine, but your average Catholic doesn’t actually know that, they know the dumbed-down version they got taught as children. And that’s all they know about it.

20

Supposedly God would strike the Pope down if he tried to abuse his “infallibility” and lead the faithful into sin.