An examination of Papal infallibility

[1seeker]

As the thread starter I'd like to request us to shift back into the original course of this thread. That course being: assuming that infallibility was understood differently by a valid, legitimate and long-standing stream of thought in the Church, is there any way to reconsider our options as the Church today?

Ever-increasing centralization happened as something of a reactionary accident to Protestantism. IF it (this centralized infallibility) is terribly unhelpful to the current Church and potentially may be a millstone around the Church's neck for the next 2-3,000 years, or however long the world remains in existence (because the Church "can't go back" or whatever), I want to push the envelope and say, oh really, why can't it go back? Why must we be stuck with a millstone from now on, solely due to an accidental turn on the road? Surely God could not have intended a less effective church than a more effective church.

Things being as they are, for all of the upcoming life of the church we're basically looking at being ripe for a Modernist takeover, ever so frequently.

Therefore if we are in a period of tumult and reappraisal in Church history, can we not reappropriate the tools used in Traddom to surround and nullify V2, to have a second look to at this, IF it is deemed to be in-the-long-term unhelpful to the Church's mission, even to her survivability?

[Quaremerepulisti]

As the thread starter I'd like to request us to shift back into the original course of this thread. That course being: assuming that infallibility was understood differently by a valid, legitimate and long-standing stream of thought in the Church, is there any way to reconsider our options as the Church today?

Ever-increasing centralization happened as something of a reactionary accident to Protestantism. IF it (this centralized infallibility) is terribly unhelpful to the current Church and potentially may be a millstone around the Church's neck for the next 2-3,000 years, or however long the world remains in existence (because the Church "can't go back" or whatever), I want to push the envelope and say, oh really, why can't it go back? Why must we be stuck with a millstone from now on, solely due to an accidental turn on the road? Surely God could not have intended a less effective church than a more effective church.

Things being as they are, for all of the upcoming life of the church we're basically looking at being ripe for a Modernist takeover, ever so frequently.

Therefore if we are in a period of tumult and reappraisal in Church history, can we not reappropriate the tools used in Traddom to surround and nullify V2, to have a second look to at this, IF it is deemed to be in-the-long-term unhelpful to the Church's mission, even to her survivability?

All right well let me take a first stab here.  All these debates come, in the end, to questions of epistemology.  We all want to be good Catholics but we argue about exactly what that entails practically speaking.  So I'm going to go on record as contradicting Pius X and say that there are limits to how far obedience to a Pope should go, and I would only accept his speech denying this if I had already accepted the premise of unlimited obedience.  Sure there are plenty of other Papal documents demanding more obedience but they are only authoritative if you have already accepted that level of authority from the Pope.  Papal authority and obedience to it must be justified on some other basis than claims by the Pope, otherwise it is viciously self-referential.  What might that basis be?  On the basis that what is commanded is intrinsically necessary or useful for salvation and sanctification.  If it doesn't meet this test, it's outside the Pope's proper sphere of authority and doesn't become inside it just because he says so.

ETA: to claim otherwise is a real species of positivism.

[aquinas138]

I don't see how the Church can "take back" papal infallibility given its solemn dogmatic definition; it's either a dogma or not, and the Church said it was and has really not said anything to the contrary for 145 years. Seems iron-clad. The only way "forward" is in the practical sphere - to reverse course on the excessive centralization in Church governance that developed since Trent and put papal infallibility back in its proper context: a supreme, final authority to settle disputes, not to be some sort of oracle producing theology. We need (a lot) less writing from Rome. We do not need more definitions like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, which, breaking with immemorial tradition, were not defined to combat a rampant heresy, but were defined for basically devotional reasons. Since these dogmas were, content-wise, not controversial for Catholics, we tend to gloss over that these were peculiar in that they positively set forth a dogma rather than being content to condemn an error, as was the general practice throughout history, especially in the early ecumenical councils. On a practical level, papal infallibility should be reserved to those situations where, for grave reasons, an ecumenical council cannot resolve an issue, or in an "appellate" sense, when other local churches themselves refer disputes to Rome.

[1seeker]

I don't see how the Church can "take back" papal infallibility given its solemn dogmatic definition; it's either a dogma or not, and the Church said it was and has really not said anything to the contrary for 145 years. Seems iron-clad. The only way "forward" is in the practical sphere - to reverse course on the excessive centralization in Church governance that developed since Trent and put papal infallibility back in its proper context: a supreme, final authority to settle disputes, not to be some sort of oracle producing theology. We need (a lot) less writing from Rome. We do not need more definitions like the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, which, breaking with immemorial tradition, were not defined to combat a rampant heresy, but were defined for basically devotional reasons. Since these dogmas were, content-wise, not controversial for Catholics, we tend to gloss over that these were peculiar in that they positively set forth a dogma rather than being content to condemn an error, as was the general practice throughout history, especially in the early ecumenical councils. On a practical level, papal infallibility should be reserved to those situations where, for grave reasons, an ecumenical council cannot resolve an issue, or in an "appellate" sense, when other local churches themselves refer disputes to Rome.

I'm not countering infallibility as a concept. Some notion of infallibility was with the Church since the earliest times. The point I want to raise is what if we should interpret it using this "second" school of Catholic thought which was practically extinguished in the last 100 years. I don't pretend to be a scholar on it and neither am I trying to push Gallicanism or whatever. But somehow Pope John XXII said that his predecessor's infallible bull was fallible, although such a history was obscured in the afterglow of "1950s Catholicism" which we're all still living in.

Somehow the Council of Florence did depose a Pope and judged itself to be above the Papacy, although this was obscured in the subsequent anti-Gallican polemics. Older Catholics did not argue that "the Pope is judged by no one" and since truth never changes, either they were all wrong until modern times, or we have another way to understand modern truths, to make them consonant with old, old Catholicism.

If the modern definition of Infallibility is infallible, AND Pope John XXII's definition too was infallible, they can't both be equally right (because they're different!). Could John XXII be closer to the true interpretation, and do we have a leeway to reinterpret our modern version to come closer to his?

And as for the Council of Florence, maybe it has a doorway into that alternate kind of Catholicism, in having the Popes be judged by Councils, I dunno. IT TOO (like P.John XXII) was infallible, wasnt it? By what right do we esteem modernity always "the most infallible?" If Florence was right, this could mean dispensing with some post-Trent theologians, but it wasn't their fault. (How were they to know they'd be starting a chain of events that would back the Church into a corner for Thousands of years thereafter, helpless to stop the likes of Pope Bergoglio.) Am I entirely off base here?

[Quaremerepulisti]

I'm not countering infallibility as a concept. Some notion of infallibility was with the Church since the earliest times. The point I want to raise is what if we should interpret it using this "second" school of Catholic thought which was practically extinguished in the last 100 years. I don't pretend to be a scholar on it and neither am I trying to push Gallicanism or whatever. But somehow Pope John XXII said that his predecessor's infallible bull was fallible, although such a history was obscured in the afterglow of "1950s Catholicism" which we're all still living in.

The doctrine itself is fine, and there is no justification for interpreting it using another "school" of Catholic thought.  But it arose in a milieu of excessive "clericalism" in which holiness was conceived of as Christ to the Pope, Pope to the Bishops, Bishops to the priests, and then priests to the laity.  Why then, the answer to all the problems lies in vesting more and more power in the person of the Pope; to want to do so is ipso facto good and holy, and if the Pope says jump, you say how high.

But this is not how things work, and what happened after Vatican II can be likened to a young adult leaving home after being raised by too-strict parents who micro-managed every aspect of his life, and now he doesn't know how to handle his new freedom.  Certain things are best handled at the diocesan or even the parish level.

If the modern definition of Infallibility is infallible, AND Pope John XXII's definition too was infallible, they can't both be equally right (because they're different!). Could John XXII be closer to the true interpretation, and do we have a leeway to reinterpret our modern version to come closer to his?

Again, it's necessary to have a non-self-referential epistemological basis for justifying this.  Pope's aren't infallible just because they "infallibly" say they are, but neither are Councils.

And as for the Council of Florence, maybe it has a doorway into that alternate kind of Catholicism, in having the Popes be judged by Councils, I dunno. IT TOO (like P.John XXII) was infallible, wasnt it? By what right do we esteem modernity always "the most infallible?" If Florence was right, this could mean dispensing with some post-Trent theologians, but it wasn't their fault.

I don't know if Florence provides much support for this.  Florence says:

We also define that the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff holds the primacy over the whole world and the Roman pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter prince of the apostles, and that he is the true vicar of Christ, the head of the whole church and the father and teacher of all Christians, and to him was committed in blessed Peter the full power of tending, ruling and governing the whole church, as is contained also in the acts of ecumenical councils and in the sacred canons.

(How were they to know they'd be starting a chain of events that would back the Church into a corner for Thousands of years thereafter, helpless to stop the likes of Pope Bergoglio.) Am I entirely off base here?

You're not entirely off base.  Not at all, although what I'm about to say won't be pleasing to some traditionalists.  Most of the Bishops didn't want the Novus Ordo Missae.  Most of the priests didn't want the NOM.  Most of the laity didn't want it.  The imposition of the NOM from the top down by fiat didn't arise in a vacuum however.  There was a history of Rome imposing liturgies from the top down.  The Eastern (Uniates) resented "latinizing" influences.  Even Pius V (a hero in traditionalist circles) imposed a unified version of the Mass (with a few exceptions). 

As for Infallibility itself, the attitude among the extreme ultramontanists (who Cardinal Newman called "an arrogant and insolent faction" was: we don't have to care about history; we don't have to care about tradition.  As Pius IX said, "La tradizione, sono io!"