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

Good grief! Would you substantiate all of that? You are making astounding claims. Maybe you are not aware of how astounding they are!

Except fr Pope John Paul II who exercised his infallibility 482 times.

Again, we're not talking about the "true nature of Orthodoxy" or the "true nature of Catholicism" or anything here. We're talking about specific, defined dogmas. Suppose the dogmas are like a vast, mysterious garden. You can only really understand what's in the garden by exploring it. However, someone has also put up fences (dogmatic definitions) around the garden to keep out certain pests (heretics). You can't explore the garden by looking at the fence, but you can certainly know whether you're in the garden or not. By denying Papal infallibility, you place yourself outside of the Catholic garden, as several of your fellow Catholics have pointed out here.


Mind and heart are inseparable, but not indistinct. There are varying degrees and kinds of understanding. If "personal experience" is required, then nobody can understand anything without believing and practicing it, in which case there's no point in talking to outsiders about one's faith. I guess that even some of the Catholics on this forum haven't had the requisite "personal experience", and therefore lack your superior understanding of papal infallibility, since they find your contortions as baffling as I do.


Reluctance, not refusal. They offered definitions when they had to, and were very persnickety about the language that was used. Nobody wants to put a big ugly fence around his garden, but when the deer start munching on the flowers...

Well, I don't think it's widely accepted that canonizations fall under the domain of infallibility.

To some extent, there isn't. Nobody will ever convince another person to believe through pure rational argument. Evangelism is, at its best, an open invitation that creates the opportunity for metanoia. The most compelling argument is "Come and see".


I doubt you would have found a Church Father, or today any notable theologian, who would say that the dogmatic definitions of the Churchsomehow fully captured the divine mysteries in all their splendor and majesty, because, being mysteries, the more we know, the more we realize we do not and cannot know. As I said, by necessity analogical, approximate and imperfect. Hence the preference for apophatic theology, in recognition of the unknowability of God in his essence. When the Church has felt compelled to use cataphatic language in order to clarify its beliefs or resolve controversies, it has usually done so in minimalistic fashion, without trying to plumb the hydraulics of divine grace. The Church says that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons in the same essence, but makes no attempt to say how this could be so. The Church says Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, and does not attempt to say how this is possible. The Church says the Bread and Wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, yet (leaving aside the misguided efforts of the Scholastics) never explains how what looks like bread and wine is transformed into so much more.

It is precisely because man's finite mind and language are so inadequate to describe the mysteries of God that some issues have been visited and revisited. What began at Nicaea had to be clarified and refined at Constantinople. What was defined at Ephesus proved inadequate, and was clarified and refined at Chalcedon. Yet what was clarified and refined at Chalcedon itself proved inadequate, and it took another three Ecumenical Councils before the Church's Christological understanding stabilized. Yet few would say that the Christological synthesis says all there is to say about the nature of Christ, and had the Muslims not overrun Egypt and the Near East, it seems likely that further refinements and clarifications would have been forthcoming in efforts to reconcile with both the Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrians (See Meyendorff, Christ in Orthodox Theology). After a hiaitus of some 1500 years, that discussion has picked up once more, showing that the mysteries still have much more to reveal.

Given that it took the Church something on the order of 400 years to reach a general consensus on Christology, it seems impudent to say that it has nothing left to say on the matter of papal primacy, which is hardly as intractable as the question of whether Christ has one or two natures.

Moreover, the history of the Great Councils shows that doctrine does indeed develop, and when the Orthodox deny this (though none of their leading theologians do), they are either playing semantic games ("Doctrine does not change but is more perfectly expressed") or in a state of willful denial. It is therefore entirely possible for the Catholic Church's doctrine to develop, because, as Pope John Paul II said, one must be careful to distinguish between the underlying truth of doctrine, and its myriad historically, culturally and linguistically conditioned modes of expression.

For fifteen centuries, the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox anathematized each other because each thought the other had incorrect, heretical beliefs about Christ. Yet it is plain to see, from deep reading of the Fathers on both sides, that they did in fact believe exactly the same thing--that Jesus Christ is true God, that Jesus Christ is fully human, and that Jesus Christ is one. As Archbishop Elias (Zoghby) put it, "Everything else is philosophy".

In examining the issue of papal primacy, it is important to go beyond the polemics, and indeed, beyond the official statements, to determine what is essential, and what is "philosophy". That was the crux of John Paul II's invitation to the Orthodox Church (and all Christians of good will) to work with him to find a definition and modality of primacy acceptable to all and suitable for the third Christian millennium. He did not require anyone to submit; he did not demand acceptance of the status quo. He opened the door to change, in recognition that unity is more important than papal prerogatives. This is what the Orthodox Church always said it wanted. Now it has it, and the best you can do is recycle old polemics? Beyond that, you seem to insist that Catholics of good will who have taken up the challenge issued by John Paul II are somehow acting in a disloyal, un-Catholic manner.

If this is how the Orthodox treat Catholics sympathetic to them, one would hate to see how they treat those who consider them to be heretics and schismatics.

Although, to answer my own question, I will say there seems to be a strange affinity between Orthodox and Catholic traditionalists, in that both are heavily invested in the status quo, and both see any movement towards reconciliation as a threat to a situation with which they have become far too comfortable.

The process surrounding canonization is not a matter of dogma, but of the discipline and usage of a particular Church. Moreover, Pope John Paul was hardly acting unilaterally, but merely ratifying the recommendations of the curial committee responsible for examining causes for canonization. To go one step further, the Church does not "make" saints--it simply recognizes the sanctity of certain individuals and officially sanctions the incorporation of their cult into the Church's formal worship.

When I said that Popes since Pius XII had acted with great restraint in matters of dogmatization, I was referring specifically to such things as John XXIII declaration that the Second Vatican Council would offer up no new dogmatic definitions and would issue no anathemas; and particularly Pope John Paul II's refusal to act on the demand for a dogmatic definition of Mary as "Co-Redemptrix" (we all breathed a sigh of relief over that), as well as his refusal to rule ex Cathedra on the ordination of women to the priesthood, for which there was also loud public pressure from some elements of the Catholic Church. While I wasn't particularly happy with the weak-kneed statement the Vatican ultimately issued ("The Church has no authority to ordain women"), I was equally happy that the dubious and divisive power to speak ex Cathedra was not invoked as a short-cut to resolve the issue.

Though sometimes I try to imagine what would have happened if he had declared, ex Cathedra, that women could never be ordained to the presbyterate. Would some Orthodox then reflexively begin ordaining women because the Pope dogmatically pronounced against it?

Just out of curiosity, why do you find the pope's statement weak-kneed? I would think that the east wouldn also affirm that as well.

Why would you think that? The Orthodox did not reject the papal defintion of the Assumption in some sort of reflex action.

Here is the ex cathedra definition:

"We pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory."

We have no problem with that.

While none rejected it, a few began to have questions. It's the nature of the polemical relationship between the Churches, and the effect it has on people. For instance, more than a few Orthodox reject congregational singing as "Catholic", ignoring that it was the norm in the Orthodox Church until the 17th century.

In my honest opinion, because of the estrangement between East and West, perceptions of each other have grown over time. If reunion is ever to occur, BOTH SIDES will need to recognize the other's perceptions as valid for the other group, even if they do not think so themselves, and, subsequently, work in charity to overcome them.

Seraphim,

Don't get frustrated with Eastern Catholics! We are the masters of providing fuzzy answers

I think the answer to your original question hinges to a large extent on whether or not Vatican I is an ecumenical council. I lean in the direction of people like Kalistos Ware and Todd in saying that it is not. If, on the other hand, Vatican I is an ecumenical council then you are right that its decrees are binding upon the whole Church, East and West.

That deserves some serious nuance of course, but is as tight of an answer as one can supply quickly.

That is why the Ravenna Statement is so important--it was a major step towards relativizing the second millennium Western councils. In any case, a true Ecumenical Council only becomes so when everybody agrees that it is--and Vatican I is a long way from that.

I did not say that you--or the vast majority of Orthodox, for that matter--did (although there are some who quibble that somehow the Latin doctrine of the Assumption is heterodox because it does not explicitly state that Mary died--though how they could do so, I don't know; I merely report what was said in discussions with these people). But a number of people, including several Orthodox theologians, said this to me and have written similar things. I believe Kyr Kallistos mentions it in passing in a couple of articles.

If someone follows this thread from the beginning, he will notice that you constantly shift your arguments and, when asked to provide evidence for your claims, you ignore such requests and instead change the subject with an interminable history lesson of dubious relevance.

You said that the Melkite patriarch had made statements rejecting papal infallibility, but, when asked to do so by fellow Catholics, you have not provided any evidence.

You said that Rome dogmatized "the need for an institution narrative." Someone points out that no such dogma exists; again, silence.

You said that the Roman Church somehow "knows" that Papal infallibility is moot, and that there are documents demonstrating this. Again you come up empty-handed with any proof.

You said the Catholic Church talks about "circles of truth", putting the phrase in quotes, as if this exact phrase were used. When pressed, you say it's contained in Lumen Gentium (along with some commentaries you neglect to name). When it's shown that Lumen Gentium does not contain any such sentiment, and in fact has many passages quite to the contrary, then, and only then, do you begin your present line of argument that no one can really understand anything through texts. How convenient!

And for good measure, you throw in some remarks about Orthodox reflexively ordaining women, just to push everyone's buttons and sidetrack the discussion even further.

Add to that what Ghosty said, and no one ever commented on: