www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Papal infallibility

Christ is Born!! Glorify Him!!

I am a Latin Catholic. I am also humbled to have been asked to be a moderator on this section of the board.

Papal infallibility is a stumbling block in the pilgrimage of the Church to communion of Churches that have been out of communion for some time.

I have decided to combine all comments about this topic to the one already on this section. The topic continues to come up time and again and I have had to ask myself what this has to do with the Eastern Churches, their liturgical traditions, their spirituality, their theology, and their lived out experience of the Faith. For many of our brethren this has been a flash point, as it has been for the Churches in general. While it may be a valid topic for discussion, it is also something widely misunderstood and almost as often misinterpreted.

Please don't start new threads with this topic in this section.

Bob
Moderator

Christ is Ascended!! He is in our midst as He promised!!

I have been asked to reopen this topic for new threads. I do so hoping that it will not reopen the polemics that prodded me to call for a moratorium on it from last December to date.

The developments in the Catholic Church that have brought us the teachings on papal infallibility and universal ordinary jurisdiction have become an additional sutmbling block on our common walk to full communion with our Eastern brethren, not to mention oru Protestant brethren.

As I look at the ecumenical scene, I think we have come to places where all of us have seen our leaders stake out positions that are non-starters for those with whom we are engaging in dialogue. His Holiness, Pope Benedict, seems to have hinted that the Eastern Churches should accept the developments in the Catholic Church in the second millenium--from the people I know and respect in the Eastern Churches that is certainly a non-starter. On the other hand, some voices in the Eastern Churches have suggested that Rome return to a first millenium status and stance--certainly a non-starter for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that we in the Latin Church don't have the vaguest idea what that would mean or even look like; we hardly have been educated in the customs of our own Church of 100 years ago let alone 1000. Our ideas of how we live out the Tradition are far apart even as we have ideas of what it actually is.

So this topic is open. But that does not mean it is open season on each other. Let's try to remember the cahrity we were supposed to learn during Great Lent.

In Christ,

Bob

Pope Benedict has written that the Latin Church can demand no more of the Eastern Churches than was accepted and lived in the first millennium, while that the Eastern Churches ought to accept the legitimacy of doctrines developed in the West during the second millennium. There is nothing that says accepting the legitimacy of Western doctrinal development is equivalent to adopting Western doctrine--it is merely a recognition that such doctrines are not heretical, and are open to discussion.

With regard to accepting the first millennium relationship between the Churches as normative, as this is the consensus of the Catholic-Orthodox Joint International Theological Dialogue, whose declarations have been accepted by the last four Popes (including John Paul I, who, granted, didn't get a chance to say much), that horse has left the barn and must be accepted as given in all future discussions. The only thing left to discuss is the precise nature of the relationship between Rome and the Eastern Churches in the first millennium.

On that, the historical record is rich and pretty clear. The only real question is whether Rome is going to put its own self-image ahead of an objective view of the truth.

Just to clarify, it was Professor Ratzinger who made that statement, long before he became Pope Benedict. As it has been stated before, it appears he may no longer hold to that view, especially when he was charge of the CDF.

can you give me the reference for that quote?

thank you.

Herb

The quote comes from a lecture in Graz, Austria in 1976. You can read the entire lecture in Principles of Catholic Theology: Building Stones for a Fundamental Theology by Ignatius Press.

Thank you Griego

Has he actually and publically reputated this position?
Has he contradicted it by later states when he was in Rome in the CDF or in Peter's Roman Chair?

I would argue he has. In the 1997 Letter to the Melkite Patriarch [orthocath.files.wordpress.com] on the Zoghby Initiative, Cardinal Ratzinger (along with Cardinals Silvestrini and Cassidy) wrote what was necessary for Eastern Catholics to believe:


Cardinal Ratzinger also helped write the doctrinal commentary [ewtn.com] for Ad Tuendam Fidem [vatican.va] (which came out a few months later) that inserted stronger language into both the Eastern and Western Codes about what was necessary for Eastern and Western Christians to believe, and among these was:


So, at least when it comes to Eastern Catholics, Pope Benedict wrote, while he was Cardinal Ratzinger, that Eastern Catholics needed to hold to the Catholic teachings on the primacy and infallibility of the Pope. If he doesn't make exception for Eastern Catholics now, why would he still hold to the earlier statement from the 70s?

It seems that Rome itself is confused about this, which makes it difficult to gain clarity on how others are supposed to view it.

Where is Rome confused on this? The quote by Professor Ratzinger was way before he ever went to Rome (or was even a Bishop).

Unless I am mistaken, Cardinal Ratzinger was Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1987 (date of the aforementioned Proposal), in the Vatican.

Regardless, he was very well established in the Roman Catholic hierarchy (18 years out from being elected Pope) and must have had some intelligent reasoning behind his line of thinking.

That a man of such distinction within the Roman Catholic Church could even come to such a conclusion demonstrates the ambiguity (if you do not like the word "confusion") of this doctrine, much less change his mind about it completely.

Or should we wait for another change of mind before settling on an answer?

thank you Mr. Brown

but I was actually looking for something more specific vis a vis Orthodoxy and Orthodox Churches.

I agree with Stuart (and probably most of the Eastern Catholic posters here) that the present form of the Eastern Code is...."a work in progress" (some might be more forthright and call it "a very flawed document" - given that it's basically a photocopy of the Latin Code).

When the papacy had made moves to try to better understand it's role in the Catholic Communion (as JP2 began with then Patriarch Lubomyr) Papal authority and infallibility is (from an Eastern Catholic point of view) becoming better understood and not limited to its most ultramontane intra Latin church theology. (towards a more byzantine understanding of papal and church infallibility)

My understanding is that he wrote the words cited above in 1976, while a professor and before he was a Bishop.

His statements as part of the CDF are very clear and unambiguous.

There is no authoritative Catholic Church document that would so limit the Catholic understanding of papal infallibility.

For example, John Paul II quoted these words from Lumen Gentium: [vatican.va]

Okay, but what about the rest of what I said?