www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Eastern Catholics and Papal Infallibility

It is axiomatic that one cannot give the sacraments to heretics, most especially the Eucharist. The Fathers taught such from the beginning. Heresy involves the denial of essential beliefs. Essential beliefs are usually called dogmas. Papal infallibility has been called a dogma. But the Catholic Church gives the Eucharist to those Orthodox who present themselves before the Chalice. And it allows Catholics to receive the sacraments from the Orthodox Church.

Ergo:

Either the Catholic Church is guilty of incredible cynicism and risking the salvation of its faithful by allowing them to receive the sacraments from heretics (and by giving the sacraments to heretics);

or--perhaps Papal infallibility isn't really a dogma after all. Perhaps it is not some transcendent truth, but (like the temporal supremacy of the Pope) a transient, historically conditioned artifact that emerged in a particular time and place, and which therefore will lose its relevance as circumstances change.

The Catholic Church is not integrist. It speaks of "circles of truth", at the center of which are the core elements of the faith concerning the Trinity, the nature of Christ, and the mystery of salvation. Less important truths are found in concentric circles at various distances from the center. It would seem that papal infallibility is not anywhere near the center, but maybe somewhere among the outer planets, if not in the Oort Cloud among the comets and more ethereal celestial bodies.

While I would speak differently then Stuart, there is much food for thought in what he writes. After reading his post I thought that we are speaking of two separate things here. There is Truth (the Trinity and what we necessarily believe for salvation) and there are guardians of that Truth (bishops, of whom Peter is the first). While it is necessary to believe what is correct and true in all things it is also not necessary to put all things at the same level.

The Pope will still be humiliated; the difference is, so will every thinking Catholic and Orthodox Christian.



Not necessarily cynicism (though your "artful ambiguity" is redolent of it) but definitely incoherence, muddled/contorted reasoning, and relativism.


1. Where does the Catholic Church speak of these "circles of truth"? Since you put the phrase in quotes, I'm assuming those exact words have been used somewhere by some reputable Catholic authority. Where?
2. How do you determine what the core is and what the outer ring is?

It was artful ambiguity when Constantine backed the term homoousios at Nicaea.

Ambiguous it may have been; a lie it was not. A new and different definition being presented as merely a "clarification" is a lie.


*Crickets*

Not at all. In the first place, Pastor aeternus was almost immediately clarified by two letters written by the Pope to German bishops in 1875, in response to Bismarck's instructions to the German foreign ministry that all communications regarding the Catholic Church should go directly to the Pope, bypassing the German bishops (this was part of his Kulturkampf to undermine the authority of the Catholic Church within the new German Empire). Bismarck based this directive on a maximal interpretation of Pastor aeternus. In his letters to the German bishops, Pius IX indicated that Pastor aeternus did not supersede or circumscribe in any way the traditional authority and responsibilities of the diocesan bishops. In fact, it was noted, the Pope could only speak ex Cathedra when he spoke with the mind of the Church, which in turn was transmitted and preserved by the college of bishops.

Flash forward to 1950, when Pius XII promulgated his ex Cathedra decree on the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. In preparation for the declaration, Pius sought to discern the will of the Church and did so by polling (informally) the bishops (since there was nothing controversial about the doctrine, they raised no objections).

Flash forward to the Second Vatican Council, the Constitution Lumen gentium and the Decree on Ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio. The former radically redirected the ecclesiology of the Catholic Church as it had existed since Trent. The Catholic Church was no longer merely the Roman Church, but a communion of particular Churches; moreover, there were also true Churches outside of the Catholic communion. The latter identified the special relationship between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and made ecumenism an integral element of the Church's mission.

By implication, then, to achieve the moral unanimity required for the issuance of an ex Cathedra decree, any Pope would have to obtain the assent not only of the bishops of the Roman Church, but of all the true Churches recognized by the Church of Rome, both in and out of communion.

If you think about this, it means, quite simply, that there will never be another ex Cathedra decree. In the first place, if the doctrine involved is in any way controversial, assent will not be forthcoming. Even if the doctrine is not controversial (in which case, why bother with an infallible statement?), consent would not be forthcoming from the Orthodox Churches and even from many of the Eastern Catholic Churches, because of their objections to the very concept of infallibility.

In sum, Vatican II created a situation in which infallibility is a dead letter. In law, there is a "principle of desuetude", according to which a law on the books which has never been applied, or which has not been applied for many decades, loses the force of law (e.g., adultery statutes are still on the books in many states, but are not enforced due to desuetude).

The Church has also accepted this principle, because of the manner in which canons and decrees tend to pile up, one on top of the other, often in a contradictory manner, without ever being formally superseded. The Orthodox Church is replete with examples of canons still in the various collections, which it simply does not enforce (a cleric using a Jewish physician can be returned to the lay state, which probably means there would be very few priests at the altar next Sunday if we chose to enforce it). One Orthodox bishop once said in my hearing that if the full rigor of Church law were to be imposed, nobody would be able to approach the Chalice for years.

Well, this is also the situation with regard to infallibility. As I said, the dogma has no bite. It cannot be applied, and it is an issue only to those who choose to make it one. Wisdom would say, let it die a slow death of neglect, because any Orthodox Christian ought to realize that the main thing holding the world's largest Christian confession together is the office of the Pope, and that the deliberate humiliation of the Pope, or undermining of his authority among Roman Catholics, would create a crisis that could only have negative effects for all other Christian communities, including the Orthodox Church.

The entire ecclesiology of the Catholic Church is founded upon it. See Lumen gentium, and the myriad commentaries written about it over the last forty-odd years.

Careful. One could use your logic to suggest that the Creed at Constantinople was a lie because it further developed the Creed at Nicea. It was certainly new and a clarification but it not a lie because it simply stated what the Church believed, as best as the Council Fathers could express it. Likewise, Catholic Teaching regarding the ministry of the Successor of Peter. That you might disagree with it does not make it a lie. You appear to be approaching the topic with a demand for 'black-n-white' that the Church (East or West) would never insist upon.

Yes, everyone must engage in fair play.

One can also turn the whole infallibility issue on its head by saying when the Pope speaks the truth in matters of faith and morals, he is indeed speaking infallibly. Looked at in that light, an ex Cathedra declaration is not necessary--one reason (in addition to those I presented above) why every Pope since Pius XII has resisted the urge--and sometimes very vocal support for--making an infallible declaration on this, that or the other. Say what you will, the Bishops of Rome since the second half of the 20th century have acted with great restraint in this regard.

John- Stuart has already stated several times on this thread that he rejects papal infallibility as false. Therefore, the "clarification" he demands is indeed a qualitative change in the doctrine and not a clarification at all.



Hey, I'm infallible too, except when I'm wrong. I'm also a vegetarian between meals.


There is nothing in Lumen Gentium mentioning "circles of truth." The phrase does not appear, nor, as far as I can tell, does the general idea appear. Maybe one of those unnamed commentaries has the key.

We do, however, find these interesting bits:

Note the "irreformable" bit, which John strongly suggested had been canceled out by Vatican II.

Also, this part, which definitively rules out the branch theory ecclesiology of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches being equal "sister churches":
I know, I know... I'm just "proof-texting" here. I'm sure I'm missing some larger context which I would know about if only I would read through some other document, and another, and another...

So, you are saying by inference that in order to understand the Orthodox Church--the Orthodox mind--one need only read the right texts and all will be clear?

OK, then. Might I interest you in some prime waterfront real estate within the beautiful Great Dismal Swamp?

Oh, and by the way--you really don't understand my position vis a vis Vatican I and papal infallibility. Not at all. You read into my statements what you want to see there.

To understand the Orthodox mind? No. But if someone wanted to understand, intellectually, the basic Orthodox doctrine about, say, the incarnation or icons, it would be very easy to direct them to some concise and publicly available texts explaining the important points. Likewise, if I want to get a basic understanding Papal Infallibility, I can turn to Rome's official definitions and explanations of the doctrine- that is, after all, what these texts are for.




I don't think anyone does, Stuart. And I don't think that's our fault.

No, long ago I learned one cannot even apprise intellectually the true nature of Orthodoxy by reading books (and I certainly read a lot of books, so this was something of an epiphany for me). One can only truly understand and appreciate Orthodoxy by living it--because the Orthodox Church, like the human person, is a psychosomatic whole. You cannot separate mind and body, you cannot separate the intellect and the heart. You can only understand through personal experience, which is why all books on Orthodoxy, fall short of the mark. The Fathers understood this, hence their reluctance to "define" sacred mysteries; they knew any doctrinal statements about God would of necessity be analogical, approximate, and to some extent inaccurate, because a creature can never fully apprehend his Creator. Both Catholics and Orthodox need to exercise a degree of humility whenever touting the superiority of their doctrine over the other. Glass houses and all that.


It all right. I forgive you all.

There have been some major responses by the Orthodox to the Pope's invitation, the prime one being that of Metropolitan John Zizioulas.

If you look through the bibiography given in the first lengthy message on the link below, you will notice literally dozens of recent Orthodox books and monographs on papal primacy.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1558305/posts

What the Orthodox see as the Catholic agenda here, is to try and push the Orthodox into a Roman Catholic paradigm of the Church and global primacy. Why, after 2000 years, do we need to debate the issue of primacy among ourselves in the 21st century? There is NO reason, except to attempt to alter our ecclesiology. But the Orthodox won't do that and we certainly do NOT want to create a global MacChurch.


Cardinal Kasper on Ravenna:
"But the real breakthrough, he said, was that "the Orthodox agreed to speak about the universal level -- because before there were some who denied that there could even be institutional structures on the universal level. The second point is that we agreed that at the universal level there is a primate. It was clear that there is only one candidate for this post, that is the Bishop of Rome, because according to the old order -- "taxis" inGreek -- of the Church of the first millennium the see of Rome is the first among them."


The response of the Orthodox Church of Russia:

Bishop Hilarion, speaking to "Inside The Vatican", 15 November 2007:

"We do not have any theology of the Petrine office on the level of the Universal Church. Our ecclesiology does not have room for such a concept. This is why the Orthodox Church has for centuries opposed the idea of the universal jurisdiction of any bishop, including the Bishop of Rome.

"We recognize that there is a certain order in which the primates of the Local Churches should be mentioned. In this order the Bishop of Rome occupied the first place until 1054, and then the primacy of order in the Orthodox Church was shifted to the Patriarch of Constantinople, who until
the schism had been the second in order. But we believe that all primates of the Local Churches are equal to one another, and none of them has jurisdiction over any other."

From
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1925822/posts