www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West "Papal infallibility"

Peter,

I honestly don't understand the antagonism I am getting from you. I was simply trying to understand your thoughts on this matter - I was not even challenging them. Perhaps it is just the medium of Internet forum discussion that causes confusion, but I was trying to honestly determine the details of your beliefs so that I could understand them, and perhaps be persuaded by them. However, in each of my posts you attempted to find some type of "attack" from me, which did not exist. All I will say is that if you knew my own beliefs on these matters, you would most likely realize that I was not questioning your Catholicism or attacking you in any way. Asking clarifying questions about a belief is not the same thing as attacking a belief.

If you do not wish to discuss your beliefs with me, that is fine; I will let the matter drop. Although I admit it saddens me a bit, as I was very interested in your viewpoint.

True, but the sentence is a statement, not a question.

Peter,

If you wish to correct me of supposedly erroneous statements, that is fine. In my many years of studying Catholic theology, both academically and on my own, I've never encountered one person who ever denied that the declaration of the Assumption was an ex cathedra statement - Catholic, anti-Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant. If you are a person who denies that, then you must know that you are in small company. That doesn't make you wrong, but you should realize that it is an extraordinary position to take. All you had to do was simply explain your reasoning and leave it at that.

However, if you wish to feel attacked at every opportunity, I'll let you do that with someone else. I have better things to do.

Good day.

Dear Francis,

Although I don't have anything to add concerning the subject matter, I would like to say on a personal note that I'm sorry if I offended you. Also, I'm sorry if I took your statement too literally -- I made a note like "unless I�m taking you too literally ... ", but now I realize that I should have made it more strongly and elaborated.

I hope you find what you are looking for.

God bless,
Peter.

Peter,

Please be patient enough to realize that not everyone is going to be thinking about what you wrote several posts back when they read a more recent post. I'm afraid the foregoing statements appear extremely odd if read outside the context of your earlier statement:Generally speaking, I think it must be conceded that Pius certainly intended to make an ex cathedra statement, and that very few commentators have found reason to contend that he did not.

I have found that whenever I venture a novel opinion, people will usually re-interpret what I said in terms of something more familiar. This seems to be the way the human mind works. The only way to get around this is to keep re-iterating the point that people will be having trouble with. (Ideally, this can be done from a different angle each time, which helps me as well as my audience to understand what I'm trying to say.)

In the case cited above, what is confusing is that you are not taking the more familiar position that an ex cathedra statement is not infallible (as many would do, including virtually all non-Catholics and even a number of Catholics), but that Munificentissimus Deus was not--or at least, may not have been--an ex cathedra statement.

When you are trying to present a novel opinion such as this, and someone like our brother Francis keeps repeating the statement that "it is agree by all that the Pope declared this ex cathedra", it is clear enough to me that he has missed your point completely. He is not being contentious at all.


Peace,
Deacon Richard

Dear Deacon Richard,

Thank you for that post. I will definitely give some thought to what you have said.

God bless,
Peter.

My apologies to any offense I may have caused.

As I have pointed out a few times on here, if you are going to use this argument do not include the Proclamation of the Immaculate Conception. It was promulgated BEFORE Vatican I.

With all due respect, Byzantophile, I would disagree with your assertion that somehow the Immaculate Conception cannot be an exercise of ex cathedra infallibility since it was issued prior to the dogmatic definitions of the Ecumenical Council of First Vatican.

I think that when something is formally defined, it comes into an explicit recognition and dogmatic form. It doesn't mean it just comes into existence at that moment and did not exist prior to the definition. In fact, it would seem the opposite is true: it really has existed in some sense all along and is now, at the time of definition, acquiring an explicit recognition.

So if papal infallibility did exist prior to the 1870s, I don't see why it could not have in effect been put to use at earlier times.

Best,
Robster

Dear Robster,

You raise a fascinating point! Certainly, all agree that the pronouncements of the Ecumenical Councils are infallible.

Were these also part of an exercise of papal infallibility? As one Redemptorist friend of mine proposed in a paper, papal infallibility might be limited to a pope's approval of decisions made by Ecumenical Councils.

?

Alex

I agree with Robster - a council does not "invent" a doctrine, it simply declares it. So, if papal infallibility is true, it has always been true, not just after 1870.


Some Roman Catholics would claim this. I, however, would disagree. I see infallibility as a charism of the Church, which both councils and the pope participate in. Thus, one cannot say that "papal" infallibility is greater than "council" infallibility, or vice versa, or that one is dependent upon the other.


Perhaps, but this is definitely not a very common view.

Dear Francis,

You are very informed and well-read and it is always a pleasure to read your posts!

Alex

LOL. I had someone misunderstand me last time as well. So I'll repeat this again.

There are people who are only saying that things proclaimed ex cathedra AFTER VCI are infallible and that there are only two--the Immac. Conception and the Assumption. This is incorrect of course, but if they are going to I am saying that only ONE of these was proclaimed after VCI. In other words I am telling them to be consistent with their argument. As I said last time. Making the argument mentioned above would negate the entirety of the Catholic Faith.

Please read more carefully next time.

Dear Alex,

I would be interested to hear how your friend describes it.

If he says "Not all ex cathedra statements are infallible, but only the ones backed by an ecumenical council" then I would say he is contradicting a defined dogma.

If he says "All ex cathedra statements are infallible, but the only statement that can be ex cathedra is a papal statement approving decisions made by Ecumenical Councils", then I would say he is not contradicting a defined dogma, but I personally don't share his view: I can't say that a papal statement without an ecumenical council is automatically not ex cathedra, any more than I can say that the pope automatically speaks ex cathedra whenever he intends to.

Sorry that sentence was so long

-Peter

Dear Alex...

Although I completely disagree with any use of the word 'infallible' as being entirely inapplicable to any human statement of any kind ...

I do believe that the scenario you suggest here (as put forth in the paper) will be exactly what will emerge as union in the future.

I have come to suspect that neither the Orthodox nor the Roman Catholic .. belief about what Peter's role was in the early church .. are correct. But the only future role which can function ... is as you say above.

Peace to you.
-ray