Sunday, February 19, 2012

POPE INFALLIBLE?

The Truth about Papal Infallibility
Tomas C. Catangay

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the Pope has the singular privilege of infallibility. What is this so-called “Papal Infallibility”? From the book Discourses on the Apostles’ Creed, Clement H. Crock explains:
          “The term ‘infallibility’, then, as applied by the Catholics to the Pope or to the supreme teaching authority in the Church, is defined thus: it is that singular privilege of being preserved from falling into error, or of not leading others into error, in matters of faith and morals. For the Church to be infallible, it means that singular privilege of being preserved from all danger of changing the doctrine of Jesus Christ, or of mistaking the true meaning of what the Divine Saviour taught, commanded, or forbade to do and believe.” (pp. 203-204)
       Papal Infallibility “is that singular privilege of being preserved from falling into error, or of not leading others into error, in matters of faith and morals.” The Catholic Church allegedly is preserved from the peril of changing the doctrine of Christ or of mistaking the true meaning of what Christ taught to do and believe.
          Did the Pope have “infallibility” since the beginning of the Catholic Church? Dave Hunt, in his book A Woman Rides the Beast, reveals, thus:
          “The bishops well knew that papal infallibility had never been accepted by the Church but had been repeatedly denied. To accept it now would be to go against centuries of Church tradition as well as the Scriptures. …
          “It is a fully established fact of history that for many centuries after Christ the Church had no notion that the Bishop of Rome had the final word on disputes or he was infallible. Moreover, when the popes began to assert their alleged infallibility, as we have already seen, they often used it wickedly. Furthermore, according to a 1987 Time poll, 93 percent of today’s Catholics hold the opinion that ‘it is possible to disagree with the pope and still be a good Catholic’. So much for the practical effect of infallibility. No wonder the Church got along without it for 1800 years.” (pp.132,136)
          Papal Infallibility “had been repeatedly denied” by the Catholic Church. For 1800 years, the Catholic Church went on without this teaching. This dogma, therefore, could not be traced from the very beginnings of the Catholic Church. Catholic bishops themselves knew that this teaching “had never been accepted” by their church.

A mere invention

          When was the Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility formulated? An “eccentric Franciscan,” Peter Olivi, created it “in one stroke”:
          “Catholic theologian Hans Kung writes:
          “With regard to the origin of the Roman Doctrine of infallibility…[it] did not slowly ‘develop’ or ‘unfold’, but rather was created in one stroke in the late 1200s [by] an eccentric Franciscan, Peter Olivi (d. 1298), repeatedly accused of heresy. At first no one took Olivi’s notion seriously.
The medieval canonists…had never claimed that the Church needed an infallible head to preserve its faith. …[And] the modern critical attack on the principles of infallibility has the backing of Scriptures and the body of Catholic tradition.” (Ibid., p. 112)
          The Catholic doctrine of Papal Infallibility was only created by Peter Olivi who was repeatedly accused of heresy. The canonist of the middle ages, on the other hand, had never claimed that an infallible head was needed by the Catholic Church. In fact, during the first Vatican Council’s deliberation on the subject infallibility, “ …many bishops were strongly opposed to affirming infallibility both on scriptural and traditional grounds. Some left in protest before the final vote was taken and only affirmed it later under Vatican threats and for the sake of Church unity. Bishop Lecourtier was so distressed by the fraud that he ‘threw his conciliar documents into the Tiber and left Rome…’. For that act he was removed from his bishopric” (Ibid.. p. 133).
          The approval of the Papal Infallibility in 1870 (A Guide to Catholic Reading, (p. 84) was not the consensus of all the bishops who attended the first Vatican Council. The majority who opposed the idea were intimidated and coerced by Vatican threats. For instance, Bishop Lecourtier was removed from his bishopric because, being so distressed by the fraud surrounding the approval of the Papal Infallibility doctrine, he threw his conciliar documents into the Tiber.

The Pope Errs

          To uphold Papal Infallibility is to assert that all the previous Popes did not err in their teachings or official pronouncements. But the fact is, Pope Adrian VI admitted that the Pope “can err even in matters touching the faith. He does this when he teaches heresy by his own judgment or decretal. In truth, many Roman Pontiffs were heretics” (A Woman Rides the Beast, p. 108). Also, Catholic Church erred in the case of Galileo when it “condemned as formal heresy” Galileo’s scientific teaching that the sun is the center of the universe (A Catholic Dictionary, p. 205)
          Another Pope, John XXII, branded the Papal Infallibility doctrine as being the work of the devil. Dave Hunt says:
          “To justify contradicting another pope, John produced his Bull Qui quorundam (1324), a dogmatic assertion of doctrine made to the entire Church and thus infallible by today’s rules. In it John XXII reviled the doctrine of papal infallibility as ‘the work of devil’,” (A Woman Rides the Beast, p. 113)
          What is truly the rationale behind Pope Pius IX’s insistence in having the Vatican Council of 1970 promulgate the Papal Infallibility doctrine?
          “There was a very special reason: Infallibility was the final desperate prop which Pope Pius IX hope would support the collapsing structure of Roman Catholic domination over the governments of the world and their citizens.” (Ibid., p.118)
          Pope Pius IX thought that the Papal Infallibility doctrine can prevent the collapse of Catholic domination over the governments of the world and their citizens; hence, the intimidations and threats against the majority of bishops who were opposed to the Papal Infallibility doctrine. Ironically, the dogma failed its purpose. The eventual collapse of the Catholic Church has been witnessed by Catholic authorities themselves.
          The collapse of the Roman Catholic Church concerns not only its domination over the governments and their citizens, but even its ecclesiastical organization and ideological unity. Malachi Martin, in his book The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, says, thus:
          “The most surprising and the most puzzling development in the last twenty years has been the sudden and undoubted decline of the Church of Rome in its ecclesiastical organization and ideological unity. The sheer suddenness of this development makes the decline catastrophic. …
          “As things now stand, there appears to be no reasonable hope that this decline can be arrested, and no reasonable expectation that the present organizational structure of this venerable Church can outlive our century. …
          “The relevant statistics and other details are horrendous for the traditional Roman Catholic mind. When plotted on a graph covering the years 1965-80, the number of priests, nuns, religious brothers, monks, junior and senior high school students, private college students, baptisms, conversions, inter-Catholic marriages, communions, confessions, confirmations—every significant statistic available—describes a plummeting, non-stop, downward drop. Added to these key factors are the figures of those Roman Catholics who totally reject Roman teaching about divorce, contraception, abortion, homosexuality, and Communism.” (p. 11)
          The above cited quotation reveals the sad state of the Roman Catholic Church in its ecclesiastical organization and ideological unity. This downward trend, it seems, could not be arrested. The Church’s eventual collapse is undoubtedly predictable.

Built upon the wrong foundation

          Why is the Roman Catholic Church’s collapse—which Pope Pius attempted to stop through the formulation of the Papal Infallibility doctrine—inevitable? According to the parable of the Lord Jesus Christ, a house without foundation is bound to fall or collapse (Lk. 6:49). The true Church, is built upon the true foundation stone who is Christ, the chief cornerstone (Mt. 16:18; Eph. 2:20). This cornerstone, Christ, was rejected (Acts 4:10-12) by the Catholic Church which opted to recognize another as their foundation stone. The Catholic Church was built upon Peter whom it recognized as its cornerstone:
          “…Peter was the rock upon which the Church was to be built. The stability and permanence of any building depends greatly upon the quality of its foundation.” (Discourses on the Apostles’ Creed, p. 216)
           We accept that the “stability and permanence of any building depends greatly upon the quality of its foundation.” That is why we are absolutely sure on the stability and quality of Christ as the foundation stone of the true Church. The Holy Scriptures say concerning Christ:
          “…A foundation stone, a tested stone.” (Is. 28:16, New Revised Standard Version)
          “…A cornerstone chosen and precious.” (I Pt. 2:6, Ibid.)
          On the other hand, what is the impression of the Catholic authorities themselves concerning Peter whom they recognize as the foundation stone of their church? Another Catholic authority, Killian McDonnell says, thus:
          “Their maybe a little conceit in our attachment to Peter. …Peter was a mixture of the great and the small. He was a man of great loves and little fears, strong in word and weak in action, wavering between resoluteness and timidity. …It was the little things that made a coward of him. At one moment he was advancing, sword in hand, on a cohort of Roman soldiers, at another floundering in confusion on being questioned by a serving girl.” (The Restless Christian, p. 53)
          The Catholic Church is built upon the wrong foundation. No wonder it is collapsing. And to prevent “the collapsing structure” of the Roman Catholic Church, the late Pope Pius IX deemed necessary the approval of the Papal Infallibility doctrine which evidently failed. (:

Referrences:

Attwater, Donald, ed.
A Catholic Dictionary, 2nd ed. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1949
Bernard, Jack F. and John J. Delaney.
 A Guide to Catholic Reading. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. 1966
Crock, Rev. Clement H.
Discourses on the Apostles’ Creed. New York: Joseph F. Wagner, Inc., 1938
Hunt, Dave.
A Woman Rides the Beast. Eugene, Oregon : Harvest House Publishers, 1994
Martin, Malachi.
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church. United States of America: Malachi Martin Enterprises, Ltd., 1981
McDonnell, Killian, O. S. B.
The Restless Christian. Collegeville, Minnesotta: The Order of St. Benedict Inc., 1957