www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Pope Resignation - A Time for re-evaluation of Bishop of Rome?

Do you think it's time for the Latin Catholic Church to start rethinking the hard line of Papal Infallibility? - perhaps take major steps now to return to Orthodoxy as the Bishop of Rome once was? - certainly a Bishop with primacy but EQUAL in status to ALL OTHER BISHOPS

- maybe it's time for the Pope to voluntarily reel himself back in to a more normal - less dictatorial role.

I believe that the Pope made his decision partly as a contribution to the larger re-figuring of the papal office, as it is understood by Catholics.

I believe that Pope Benedict's resignation will occasion plenty of conversation about the Church's teaching on papal ministry and authority. I even hope that he will (someday) share his own theological opinions on the matter with the whole Church, though I expect we will have to wait for it.

There will be quite a bit of misinformation about the Holy Father's charism of infallibility as the supreme pontiff. It is a difficult subject for our sound-bite "post-modern" world. Looking at the pope as first among equals--as servant of the servants of God--infallibility is not hard to comprehend when properly presented. It is not personal to the man if he no longer sits on the chair of Saint Peter--it is his office that is protected from error in teaching or proclaiming a matter of faith or morals. That cannot, has not and will not ever be exercised without the pontiff having been in constant collegial discussion with the college of bishops. It can't happen. The same would be the case with the "Eastern Orthodox"; they would be part of the college of bishops under their Patriarchs who, I would submit, would be the final call on anything in their Churches--although the tradition of seeking communion with the Apostolic See of Rome and it being granted every time (as long as one is not a notorious heretic) by Pope in Rome. One has to go through a lot of mental and hypothetical gymnastics to arrive at a scenario whereby the Orthodox fears of some would be realized. We know odd things can arise, as is demonstrated by the heresies that arose and which were the reasons for the first Seven Ecumenical Councils of the Undivided Church. I think unification is closer than many think--the big problem will be the laity and perceptions grounded in legend, ancient histories with their biases (on both sides) and a desire to simply leave each other alone and be friends--even if in imperfect union.

11. And, since we were dealing with a matter of such great moment and of such importance, we considered it opportune to ask all our venerable brethren in the episcopate directly and authoritatively that each of them should make known to us his mind in a formal statement. Hence, on May 1, 1946, we gave them our letter "Deiparae Virginis Mariae," a letter in which these words are contained: "Do you, venerable brethren, in your outstanding wisdom and prudence, judge that the bodily Assumption of the Blessed Virgin can be proposed and defined as a dogma of faith? Do you, with your clergy and people, desire it?"
12. But those whom "the Holy Spirit has placed as bishops to rule the Church of God"(4) gave an almost unanimous affirmative response to both these questions. This "outstanding agreement of the Catholic prelates and the faithful,"(5) affirming that the bodily Assumption of God's Mother into heaven can be defined as a dogma of faith, since it shows us the concordant teaching of the Church's ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs, thus by itself and in an entirely certain and infallible way, manifests this privilege as a truth revealed by God and contained in that divine deposit which Christ has delivered to his Spouse to be guarded faithfully and to be taught infallibly.(6) Certainly this teaching authority of the Church, not by any merely human effort but under the protection of the Spirit of Truth,(7) and therefore absolutely without error, carries out the commission entrusted to it, that of preserving the revealed truths pure and entire throughout every age, in such a way that it presents them undefiled, adding nothing to them and taking nothing away from them. For, as the Vatican Council teaches, "the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter in such a way that, by his revelation, they might manifest new doctrine, but so that, by his assistance, they might guard as sacred and might faithfully propose the revelation delivered through the apostles, or the deposit of faith."(8) Thus, from the universal agreement of the Church's ordinary teaching authority we have a certain and firm proof, demonstrating that the Blessed Virgin Mary's bodily Assumption into heaven- which surely no faculty of the human mind could know by its own natural powers, as far as the heavenly glorification of the virginal body of the loving Mother of God is concerned-is a truth that has been revealed by God and consequently something that must be firmly and faithfully believed by all children of the Church. For, as the Vatican Council asserts, "all those things are to be believed by divine and Catholic faith which are contained in the written Word of God or in Tradition, and which are proposed by the Church, either in solemn judgment or in its ordinary and universal teaching office, as divinely revealed truths which must be believed."

I agree that the official teaching on infallibility can be understood as not intrinsically opposed to an Orthodox account. Even the Vatican I definition of papal infallibility teaches that the papacy enjoys the same infallibility as the church as a whole.

Isn't that what the original idea behind infallibility was? ... a Synod of Bishops is required ... [and] when they hash it out - and decide - and then the idea is accepted in all the apostolic churches - then and only then does a teaching become infallible - it may take years or hundreds of years ...