Papal Infallibility: Whatever He Says

One morning another worker bee, Steve, asked if he could join us for coffee.

Over the course of time, I had gotten the feeling Steve had become a bit concerned I was spending far too much time with Josh, and was probably trying desperately to convert him to my “pagan cult”.  It seems Josh and Steve were members of the same church, and Steve was probably just trying to protect Josh from “Those Catholic types.”

During the course of the break, the subject of our recent discussions came up. Steve mentioned he did not care for Catholics since they were sheep and had to believe whatever the Pope said. I told him his statement was essentially correct, except for a tiny bit that was in error.

He asked, “What tiny bit is that?”

“All of it.” I replied and then explained. “The Pope is infallible only when it affects matters of faith and morals. If the Pope said that Mexico would win the next three soccer world cups, no sane person, Catholic or not,  would put any money on it.”

Papal Infallibility

“Papal infallibility does not address everything,” he says.

Then I explains, it is a very rare and highly uncommon event when he makes such a statement.  Again the basic ground rules are the subject matter must affect faith and morals, but, the additional caveats include the statement cannot violate Scripture, the statement cannot violate the Sacred Tradition of the faith, he must be speaking as the head of the Universal Church, and the statement must define a dogma or tradition that is held by the whole Church.

Infallibility, as we understand it, is only a recent definition.  Recent is used here in light of the 2000 year history of the Church.  The First Vatican Council established formally the rules, if you will, of what statements would be considered infallible. This First Vatican Council met in 1870.  Prior to that time, the same general concepts were used; the faithful could easily ignore the pope’s prediction about snow falling in St. Peter’s Square on the 28th of June.  However, using the teaching authority of the Church and the supremacy of his office, popes have made statements that the faithful under the consequences of grave sin must consider infallible.

For example, Pope Leo I made a statement that the faithful had, have, and will continue to consider infallible and universally true.  His statement addressed the two natures of Christ: He is both fully man and fully God. Clearly, everyone here believes and knows that to be true , however, in the mid-fifth century, this was not the  case.  Other examples of infallible statements made by the various pontiffs before the  formal definition made in 1870 include the doctrine on the immortality of the spiritual soul, and the doctrine on the grave immorality of direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being.

These are statements the three of us would agree are obvious and true. Since 1870, there have been only a couple of papal statements which are infallibly correct and must be believed by Catholics, both of them are Marian.

Papal Statements

Steve asked, “Who is Marian?”

I replied, “No, not a person, but a Marian dogma which is a dogma affecting Mary the mother of Christ Jesus.”

I continued to explain. The first of the dogmas I will tell you about does not appear directly in the Gospels but can be deduced very easily. The other does not appear either but has been celebrated by the church in the Eastern Rite for centuries and it also can be inferred easily. The first is the Immaculate Conception. I do not recall if the dogma was shortly before or shortly after 1870, but it shows the process of infallibility at any rate.

To which Steve said, “Of course, Christ was conceived immaculately as the Holy Spirit came over Mary and she became pregnant.”

I responded,  “You have the right concept but the wrong person.  Mary was the one who had been Immaculately Conceived, preserved and protected from all sin.  The easiest way to prove that was to look at the visit by the angel.  When he approached her he said, ‘Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee’, different translations of the bible may say it in other words, but the concept is the same.  Mary had no sin in her; we know grace is a gift from God, but it can be displaced, destroyed, et cetera by sin, so, the angel referring to her as full of grace indicated she had no sin in her.”

“Or, we can view it from another perspective.  Christ Jesus is the Son of God, fully divine while being fully man.  Would God have wanted His son to spend 9 months in a sin filled womb while reaching gestational maturity?”

Josh jumped in, “I do not think our church has ever considered the fact that God would have been forced to exist in a sin filled womb.”

Steve then asked, “O.K., so what is the other one?

I replied, “The next one deals with the Assumption of Mary into heaven at the end of her life.  Again, if we believe God protected her from sin and she was a worthy vessel for His Son, does it not also seem reasonable she would be spared the pains of death?  The Eastern church had long considered her assumption as a matter of faith. They call it her dormification, and this has been observed since the third or fourth century.  Given her importance to the early Church, someone would have recorded her death and her burial place, neither record exists.  The Book of Revelation speaks about the victory over death that would seem to refer to it as well.  Then, the Early Church Fathers had written about it and seem to treat her assumption into heaven as a given. In 1950, the Assumption of Mary was declared to be a matter of faith for all Catholics.”

Is everything so simple?

Josh asked the question, “Is everything in your faith as simple as these examples?”

I responded, “Yes. You will recall during one of our earlier conversations, I made mention of Occam’s Razor; when facing a complex issue, look for the simplest answer. Such is most often the case with the Catholic Church. When you have a complex topic, when you have a real thorny issue, look for the least complex answer and that is probably the one closest to the correct one.”