Why Papal Infallibility is a Hoax
index to this site
MCGRATH ON PAPAL INFALLIBILITY
THE PROBLEM OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY
BAD ANTI-INFALLIBILITY ARGUMENTS
FOREWORD
Is the
pope, the visible head of the
It is vile and arrogant of the Bible, the Church and the Pope to claim their teaching is loving and infallible. That is for others to decide, not them. It does a man no good to claim to be loving and good and to be Mr Perfect if others don't think so.
The Church is so infallible that it never issued a condemnation of slavery until 1888. It only did it for it had become obvious to all the nations in Christendom that it was wrong. Instead of starting the abolition of slavery, it only used the abolition to enhance its own standing in society.
The Roman Catholic Church claims to be infallible in matters of faith and morals when it meets in an ecumenical council and the pope is infallible when he speaks as supreme teacher of the Church and makes it known what doctrines the Church is bound to believe. Infallibility is not inspiration or revelation according to the Church. It is a tool which helps the Church determine what God has revealed. In other words, it clarifies that a doctrine taught by the Church is revealed by God. The difference between infallibility and inspiration is that with infallibility the Holy Spirit protects from error and inspiration is the Holy Spirit revealing and putting ideas into one’s mind. The Church says that it has no authority to add to what God revealed to the apostles which is why infallibility has nothing to do with revealing but just a help to work out what the apostles taught (page 88, Infallible?). But obviously the Holy Spirit must inspire and reveal to the infallible person or persons. You can’t protect from error unless you inspire the person away from error. Infallibility then does involve new revelation and new inspiration. When the pope is infallible he must work out first of all and think about what is right and the decision he makes is then infallible. How can the pope be infallible when he doesn’t intend to be inspired or for God to reveal new ideas to him?
Even if the Church is infallible and so is the pope, they should be able to delegate that infallibility to a team of theologians and professors. Why don't they? It would make more sense. It is stupid to have a non-theologian and/or semi-senile pope researching matters with a view to making an infallible statement when there are others more competent. If the Church is infallible, then it doesn't matter how it uses it as long as it uses it. If infallibility is an essential doctrine of the Church, the idea that the pope has to be infallible is not. The pope should be able to give it to somebody else. In Catholicism by Fr Richard P McBrien we read that the Catholic tradition insists that primacy and infallibility go together - that is that the pope must be infallible because he has the supreme primacy of authority in the Church (page 759). Yet he admits that the scenario of the pope giving infallibility to the final decision of a commission and then using his primacy to demand that the Church accept that decision isn't a problem (page 759). The same book states that in the early centuries of Christianity, some stated that Rome has never erred or corrupted the faith and that later this came to be understood as Rome CANNOT err (page 762). Of course there is always a first time and Rome doesn't err doesn't mean Rome cannot err.
It is obvious that even if what Pope Pius IX declared in 1854 that the Blessed Virgin was conceived without sin was indeed no addition to the Catholic faith, that Pope Pius IX used infallibility to declare the doctrine is an addition to the faith. In other words, it is a new infallible doctrine to teach that Pius was infallible that day. Few popes have bothered trying to use infallibility. The Church and pope claim to be infallible but they never claimed any obligation to use it. They just used it that's all.
The
Church since it doesn’t add to revelation must be able to find proof in the
scriptures of the apostles and the apostle’s tradition that the pope is
infallible. The Vatican Council I used
only two texts, Matthew 16:18 and Luke 22:32 to prove it and they prove nothing
at all (page 89, Infallible?). Clearly then the Church used bad evidence and
when the evidence is wrong so is the conclusion.
The
pope became infallible at the First Vatican Council under Pius IX in 1870. The Church has always taught that no council
is ecumenical until it has been accepted by the whole Church as such for
infallibility belongs to the Church as a whole (page 63, Handbook to the
Controversy with
INFALLIBLE POPES?
The
Catholic Church thinks that the pope is infallible on faith and morals when he
speaks officially as shepherd and teacher of Church and intends to be
infallible. The idea became an
infallible dogma in 1870 through the infallible Vatican Council 1. The dogma says the pope can make an
infallible statement without the consent of the Church and without consulting
it. This declaration was part of the
decree in Pastor Aeternus which was ratified
as infallible at
The dogma like all the dogmas defined
by the Church or the pope is considered necessary for salvation. To say that the dogma is necessary for
salvation not in itself but because to deny it is to deny the authority of God
sounds very odd. It would indicate that
you are making a dogma for the sake of condemning people who don’t obey you and
believe in it to Hell. It would be like
throwing your weight around aimlessly just to show people who is boss. If the dogma is necessary for salvation of
itself then everybody before who did not realise that it was a true revealed by
God and who did not believe in it properly as a correct doctrine must have been
damned. It is total insanity to agree
with Roman Catholicism that the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and her
Assumption into Heaven, the two papal dogmas, are needed for salvation in
themselves. By implication, the Virgin
is being made equal to Christ for the dogmas of his saving death and glorious
resurrection are necessary for salvation and somehow illogically her conception
without sin and her assumption are equal in value to that. The blasphemies and absurdities of
Keenan
published his approved Roman Catholic Catechism in 1851 and on page 102 he
rejected the view that Catholics had to consider the pope infallible as a
Protestant calumny. In 1870 the Church
made a Gospel truth of this calumny.
The
popes exercise their infallibility so seldomly that
they can do without it. A fallible pope
can be head of the Church and have the right to obedience in so far as he
stands by revealed doctrine and that doctrine is the rod by which he is to be
measured. As long as he has infallible
doctrines it doesn’t matter if he can or can’t make such doctrines himself. The pope’s office does not mean that he must
be infallible.
John
Henry Newman declared before papal infallibility was proclaimed that he had an
opinion that the pope was infallible but was not very sure (page 13, Church
and Infallibility). It is no wonder
for if the Church is infallible the pope need not be. When Newman was not sure despite his
knowledge of the early Church how could the pope be sure enough to be able to
validly proclaim the doctrine of papal infallibility?
The
doctrine contradicts the fact that a reasonable God cannot do wasteful
miracles.
Papal
infallibility implies that a doctrine is fully revealed by God because the pope
says so and not because reason says so for if reason were enough the
infallibility could not and would not make the doctrine more convincing. If a doctrine can be proven to be revealed by
God you don’t need infallibility.
Infallibility must make the doctrine more certain otherwise being
infallible would serve no purpose. Yet
the Church says the pope cannot make a dogma unless he is sure the evidence says
it is true first. In other words reason
and investigation prove it first. So is
a doctrine infallible if proclaimed as a result of faulty research or
inaccurate information? The Church says
it is so the research is not important at all.
It isn’t necessary. Infallibility
in that case would be inspiration. Popes
would be prophets of God.
The Church teaches that the Bible cannot be added to which is one reason why it has to say infallibility is not inspiration. But virtually all Christian scholars these days think that the Bible's statements are infallible and the word of God in the same way as the popes statements are infallible. They think God pulls strings to ensure that what he wants to say is put across and that this doesn't tamper with the freedom of the instrument saying or writing those things. So if the scholars are right then the pope is adding to the Bible. They see inspiration not as God putting ideas into people's mind but as indirectly making sure they write what pleases him. For example, Mark might write a gospel and God might not like some of it so God sets the stage so that somebody will edit Mark and drop the unwanted bits. This idea fits the development of the Bible best rather than the stupid notion of God writing the Bible along with the authors.
If a man becomes pope and within seconds of being elected proclaims a new dogma such as that Judas Iscariot is in Hell forever what then? His research before he became pope can't count. The scenario shows the absurdity of papal infallibility and that it is inspiration and new revelation despite what the Church maintains.
To
affirm the need for research is to say that the pope must be infallible when he
sifts through the evidence to see what it really says. So the research is infallible as well as the
doctrine.
It may
seem that the research is only infallible if the pope intends to make an
infallible dogma. But the pope will not
know until the research is completed and it is decision time if he should make
the dogma or not. For example, Pius IX
proclaimed the doctrine that Mary was conceived without sin. He had to research it first. Then if he concluded that Mary was not
conceived sinless he wouldn’t make a dogma of that. It would be pointless. So he didn’t know if he could proclaim that
Mary was sinless at her conception until after the investigation was wrapped
up. Also, if he is to do the research
properly he cannot come to it with a biased mind. So the research cannot be infallible just
because the pope wishes to make a new dogma after he has done it.
So
everything the pope researches must be infallible because it is only when he
reaches a conclusion that the option of declaring a doctrine infallible comes
to him. But whether he proclaims a dogma
or not the conclusions must be infallible.
It must follow that all papal statements are infallible.
The
pope has the power to be infallible even if he does not want to use it.
The
pope needs to be clever before he can be infallible. Then why have most of the popes been so
stupid? What about the popes that were
only boys? To say they had latent
infallibility or whatever is meaningless.
Papal
infallibility though believed by millions of Catholics previously was not
declared an infallible revelation of God until Vatican 1 in 1870. But years before Vatican 1, the pope claimed
to be infallible as he taught that Mary was conceived without original sin and
lived a sinless life.
It was
certainly heretical for a pope to declare an infallible doctrine without the
Church first using its infallibility to make his infallibility an article of
faith. It is a contradiction to say that
the decision of a man who had not been declared infallible could be binding on
the Catholic conscience as a doctrine revealed by God. The pope was a heretic judging by Catholic
standards. Even if he were infallible he
ceased to be when he became a heretic for heresy puts you out of the Church. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was
made infallible by a false pope in 1854.
That pope was Pius IX who later convened Vatican 1 to get proclaimed
infallible. The Catholic declares that
any ecumenical council assembled by a fake pope is not infallible but is schismatical and heretical.
Vatican 1 and 2 were fake ecumenical councils. The Roman Catholic Church does not exist any
more for it has been replaced by a similar organisation.
If the pope could make an
infallible doctrine without being infallibly declared infallible by the Church
then he must be infallible – actually not potentially - all the time and every
word he says on religion is correct. But
Vatican 1 decreed that the pope can only use its infallibility under certain
conditions so if the pope was infallible in defending the Immaculate Conception
then
To say
the pope is right that he can only make new dogmas that are necessary for
salvation is to say that the pope must infallibly know what is necessary for
salvation first. The pope can make a
dogma anytime. Thus he needs to know
what doctrines are needed for salvation all the time just in case. This knowledge would be a gift to him from
God. So the pope is automatically
infallible all the time for if he knows a doctrine is necessary for salvation he
knows the doctrine is true. He knows how
a doctrine is needed for salvation and why.
He knows what the doctrine is.
Neither
text is evidence that papal infallibility was there in apostolic times. Read them in their context and see.
Peter’s
writing or speaking inspired scripture would be a different power from his
using papal infallibility. Creating
scripture differs from it in many respects.
Infallibility is preservation from error while inspiration is putting
thoughts in the mind of another. Writing
scripture does not require the approval of the Church but the Church requires
its approval. And the power is entirely
subject to God’s will and is over when he says it is over but the pope can make
a new doctrine whenever he wants.
The
Church says that the pope cannot be sure that a doctrine is true unless he
reads and thinks about it. His decision
is then guided by the Holy Spirit so that it will be the correct one. But then infallibility is only as good as the
information the pope gets. You could
have good arguments for something and miss the argument that disproves it. Papal infallibility is therefore useless with
regard to the purpose for which it exists, revealing what is God’s word. The infallibility of the Church affords more
protection but is prone to the same flaw.
Papal infallibility is dangerous and imprudent. It infers that the pope is a god for he knows
for sure when the Holy Spirit is in touch with him. The Holy Spirit is alleged to guide all
Catholics and how often have they been proved wrong? But the divine pope knows for sure when God
is speaking. He is greater than God for
he knows the mind of God. The Protestant
complaint that the papacy self-deifies itself is not too far off the mark. The pope must infallibly and supernaturally
know that God is guiding him and what God is saying. That is new revelation.
The
Church says that the pope and the Church are the official interpreters of the
revelations of God. So that can make the
Church and pope superior to the word of God therefore it is necessary that the
Church and pope possess stronger miraculous and prophetic proof of their divine
mission and authority than the word of God will have when that word is not very
clear on the need for infallibility and supreme interpreters. This stronger proof does not exist as the
Church admits so the pope and Church are not infallible. Also, Deuteronomy 18 says that the prophet of
God will make accurate predictions for the future to prove his message. The Bible says the Devil can do miracles but
that since God is stronger that a prophecy that would take too much power for
the devil to engineer fulfilment for by rigging events to carry out what he
pretended to have foreseen must be from God.
The Catholic Church and the pope are unable to give such prophecies so
they are fakes. When the Church
interprets the Bible and is infallible then the Church should be able to verify
that it has this authority by being better at prophecy even than the Bible.
The
prophet Amos declared that the sovereign Lord does nothing without first
disclosing what he is doing to the prophets (3:7). The papal system was not revealed to any
prophet so it is false. God would not
leave something so important out. And
notice that Amos does not say that the Lord presently does nothing privately or
that he does nothing private now. Don’t
assume a time limit when none is declared.
It is reasonable as well. God
will give the essentials through his prophets for unlike even the popes, they
are God’s literal mouth-pieces.
The Bible
says that in the last days there will be two witnesses or prophets sent by God
to the world. It speaks of them having
the power to prophesy for one thousand and two hundred and sixty days. This is in the Book of Revelation chapter 11
which predicts their appearance after the
If the pope is infallible his infallibility is to be preferred to that of the Church because it could happen that when the bishops are assembled in an ecumenical council that many of them have no right to be there and are not real Catholics. This would mean that the decisions of the council would be null and void and there would be no grace of infallibility. So assuming that Jesus does not let fake Catholics become pope which would mean they are not real popes, the papacy is a safer source of certainty that a dogma is revealed by God then anything else. Therefore, the duty of the pope is to employ his infallibility to ratify all the dogmas that were made before he was proclaimed infallible to make sure. The Church likes to boast that infallibility makes her dogmas certain in the sense that nobody can deny that God revealed them if there is a God (page 8,9, The Student’s Catholic Doctrine). It cannot do that with a straight face since papal infallibility came in. Papal infallibility cannot work with the councils of the Church but only against them in the sense that it makes them dangerous and superfluous.
The Old Testament speaks of a case of infallibility. In 1 Kings 3, God tells King Solomon that he can have whatever he asks. Solomon says that he would like the wisdom to discern between good and evil. He specified that he wanted this gift for he was a very young man with little leadership skills. He said that without the gift he could not govern the people of God. God then was so pleased at this request that he gave Solomon what he described as a wisdom so clever than none before Solomon or after him could be described as his equal. It would be curious if God gave Solomon this gift and didn't give it to the popes! Yet none of the popes claimed to have a unique wisdom.
The
dogma of papal infallibility is positively untrue and it is impossible for it
to be true.
WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE CHURCH
Vatican 1 declared that the infallible definitions of the pope are correct and therefore irreformable and that the consent of the Church does not make them infallible. The pope is infallible without the consent of the Church.
If the pope can make a dogma without the consent of the Church can he make one against the consent of the Church? Kung says Church tradition says that would make the pope a heretic and a schismatic and his decision wouldn’t bind the Church (page 88, Infallible?). But surely if tradition says that birth control is immoral, the pope can infallibly declare birth control wrong even if most of the Church is against him. The Church council infallibly declared that Jesus was God without the consent of the huge majority professed members of the Church. At the time nearly the whole Church took the Arian view that Jesus was not God. The tradition is wrong. The pope can make a dogma in the face of opposition from the Church. The pope is the rock so the pope can expel as many people from the Church as he feels like.
Many are worried how there is a dispute among Catholic theologians about what doctrines are supposed to be infallible. The lists of papal infallibly proclaimed doctrines differ from theologian to theologian. For a pope such as Paul VI and John Paul II to have banned contraception and declared this ban binding on the basis of the obedience due to papal authority was criminal when such disputes were and are happening. It is as if they didn't care if they were wrong but cared more about being thought to be right. So many deaths have happened due to the papal teaching. Many women have been infected by HIV from their husbands because of the belief that it is wrong to protect yourself with condoms. The popes are claiming an unjust right to kill through their teachings. The only way out is to say that they were using their infallibility - their extreme attitude seems to show they intended to be fully infallible.
The Church through keeping the clergy away from the laity as a separate caste and clothing them in strange robes and involving them in secrecy and arcane rituals and using them as the usual teachers of the people is able to put an aura of divine authority around them. They seem like speakers of the oracles of God. The Church likes to use a little ditty, "Jesus never said hear the Bible but hear the Church". This gives Catholics a fear of contradicting the Church or a reluctance to think for themselves. That is what it is intended to do for the Catholics are the sheep and the priests are the shepherds. To often then when a Catholic opposes contraception or abortion or whatever, it has less to do with having good reasons and more to do with the priests saying those things are wrong. The Gestapo were made to feel the same way. Its dangerous and lazy and immature. If you are confident in your arguments against or for something you are showing your insecurity by appealing to authority. Those Catholics who principally believe that birth control or euthanasia are wrong for the pope says so are showing that they aren't as sure as they pretend and are trying to hurt you.
The Church teaches that even if her teaching is wrong, God still uses the Church to represent him and to guide the world and won't discredit it. So if she wrongly forbids contraception, God will ensure that that this ban will not do harm, will be good and certainly no worse than it would be if the Church allowed contraception. Obedience is a duty for the Catholic even if the Church is wrong. Disobeying is a mark of disobedience to God. Needless to say, the Church holds that it is impossible for her to be wrong about the immorality of birth control.
If infallibility is inferred from the idea that the true Church cannot err in its official teaching and because Christ promised that the gates of Hell would never prevail over his Church, then to say a papal definition can be ignored despite claiming to be infallible is just saying that Catholics can pick and choose what they want out of their faith. If you want to call yourself a Catholic then you must believe whatever the Church stands for. If you don't, start your own Church or look for a Church that suits you. You cannot be a Democrat while believing in communism.
The genuine Catholic will believe that the pope is still right when he makes an infallible definition even if it is a rule that he must have the consent of the Church and he breaks that rule. Infallibility, in Catholic teaching, does not mean that the pope's research or motives or procedure will be right.
The pope can make a dogma without the consent of the Church for a number of reasons.
One, who is to say that the opponents are genuine Catholics? The Church is burdened by fakes and insincere believers. A Catholic who teaches knowingly something that differs from authentic Catholic doctrine is automatically excommunicated and is not a true Catholic. You will find few so-called Catholics who are not under suspicion for that sin. The popes infallibility is supposed to be a gift to the genuine Catholics not to those who merely say they are Catholics.
Two, the pope making the dogma would mean that some will side for him and others against. So which side then is right? If the pope can be ignored then what is the point of having a pope if you can break away? Catholics are urged to believe that Jesus made the popes infallible so that they might use it to keep the Church clear on what the faith and God said and keep the Church one in that truth and to drive out anybody that disputed the truth. The pope is the focus of unity. He cannot appear to use his infallibility wrongly without ceasing to be the rock the Church is built on. It would mean the Church ceases to be the true Church for it has added in alien elements to the gospel as if they were the gospel. What use would papal infallibility be or the papacy be if the pope can be ignored when declaring a doctrine to be revealed by God and unchangeable and official Catholicism in the fullest sense?
Three, the Church has loads of doctrines that are considered infallible without any concern for seeking the consent of most of the Church. Were most Catholics and clerics consulted when confession was introduced?
Four, infallibility is used when the Church starts to adopt false doctrine. It was used to correct the Catholics believing in the Arian heresy who comprised the majority at the time. Infallibility is no use if the consent of the Church is asked for. Also all Catholics in the past believed that birth control was a sin. Today nearly all believe that it is not. Consent of the Church cannot be reduced to the idea that it is about what the majority of Catholics believe. What about the minority of disagreers? Are they not the Church as well? Consent of the Church means the consent of the true Catholics who know what they are consenting to.
Five, tradition was speaking of popes who were not using their infallibility. A pope could give infallible doctrine before 1870 according to Roman Catholic doctrine. If so, then it could not be recognised as such until 1870 when papal infallibility and its boundaries were proclaimed. So it is infallible teaching in itself but nobody can see that so the pope cannot bind the Church then without its consent.
Six, the Church says that defining a doctrine as revealed by God means that doctrine is in the tradition that is revealed by God. Defining is used to determine which traditions are from God. So if tradition disagrees with the "not from the consent of the Church" dogma that is part of the papal infallibility doctrine then tradition reflects incorrect teaching and the definition is right and identifies the correct understanding.
Seven, the Church was proclaiming dogmas without considering what the people believed. Father Richard McBrien refers to the fact that the need for reception of the doctrine as revealed by God by the people, the criterion of reception, has only recently been recovered a part of Catholic tradition (page 65, Catholicism). But when the Church was making so many dogmas while ignoring it that proves that it is not essential after all. If it is and it wasn't considered then the Church has declared teachings infallible that are not infallible at all. Infallibility is only nonsense.
Eight, Mc Brien writes in Catholicism that when the definition of papal infallibility declared that the definitions of the pope are infallible and therefore cannot be changed or abrogated it said that the definitions are infallible by themselves and not by reason of the agreement of the Church. He interpreted this to be saying that this was to silence believers who were saying the pope's definitions were not infallible in themselves but only infallible when he was speaking for the Church so that the consent of the Church was what was making them infallible. In this view, the pope has no personal infallibility but the Church is infallible and he proclaims infallible doctrine only with its approval.
So we choose one these interpretations,
1, "The pope is only infallible when he defines what the Church has indicated to him what it believes and when he proclaims that faith. The pope has no infallibility of his own but is merely the voice of the infallibility of the Church".
2, "The pope has infallibility of his own but can only use it if the Church approves of his definition. But it is not the Church approval that is making him infallible for he has infallibility of his own".
So one is saying the pope does have his own infallibility and the other says he does not.
Nobody disputed that the pope proclaiming infallible dogma was a problem. The only dispute was if this infallibility was from the Church or from him personally. The fact that the definition of papal infallibility was considered necessary shows that it wanted to define that the pope has personal infallibility. But if he can give infallible definitions of dogma in the way we have seen without having infallibility in himself then clearly personal papal infallibility is unnecessary. To say God gives the pope the charism of infallibility is to declare that God wastes miracles and charisms.
Also Rome admits that the consent of the Church is a problem for there are bishops and priests and many laypeople who use the Catholic name but who are not real Catholics. From this it would conclude that if the consent of the Church is unclear, making an infallible doctrine means that the consent of the real Catholics must be assumed. It cannot be proven. Infallibility then cannot be obtained by looking for the consent of the Church first. Rather when infallibility is used, you also know automatically that the real Catholics have already believed your dogma. Consent is not used to make dogmas, rather dogmas show that it is there. This is the correct understanding of the teaching of the Church.
Vatican 1 meant that the pope can proclaim a dogma by himself without being in error and that the consent of the real Church not just the Church made up of real and false and undecided Catholics doesn't need to be asked for. But since the beliefs of the real Church and papal infallibility go together, it follows that when the pope makes a definition in opposition to the vast majority of professed Catholics, it follows that God wouldn't let this happen unless he saw that the real Catholics believed in the definition. Infallible definitions are intended after all to please only the real Catholics.
Conclusion: The pope according to Vatican 1 can proclaim a dogma and it is binding on us even if the whole Church is against him. After all, infallibility was given so that the Church might correct false doctrine among its members so what can one expect?
MCGRATH ON
PAPAL INFALLIBILITY
PJ McGrath’s Believing
in God has a chapter that discusses the claims of the papacy from
which I extract the necessary insights and comment on them. He rejects Kung’s view that an infallible
statement is impossible for propositions are only symbolic – all our statements
are expressed by symbols – as saying that no statement of any kind says
anything. But he argues that since the
Church needs infallibility to make its statements that does not mean the
wording of the statement is infallible so an attempt to make an infallible
doctrine can backfire if the wording is wrong.
The danger with this is that the pope can abuse his infallibility by
expressing the revelation badly or ambiguously which opens the road to
heresy. Infallibility cannot guarantee
anything and it all comes down to trust in the pope as a man. The Church boasts that the infallibility
claim is not arrogance for it says that strictly speaking the Church is not
infallible but God expresses his infallibility through it. But that is not enough to rescue the Church
from the charge of arrogance. If you
want to claim to be infallible out of arrogance you have to say that some God
is making you infallible to avoid sounding like a fool. The Church would say to this that we are confusing
infallibility with certainty for infallibility does not prove a doctrine but
only proves that the doctrine should be believed as having come from God for
Christianity is a religion of faith not knowledge (page 47, Church and
Infallibility). But they are still
saying that infallibility gives a good bit of certainty and that is enough to
justifiably charge them with arrogance.
They tell us that contraception is wrong for certain even when it saves
a woman from an AIDS infection.
McGrath
observes that statements do not err but only the people that make them do. If a statement is in error, it is not the
statement that errs but the people making it.
We have seen this to be the case and seen that it is highly unsafe. It really means for Catholics that men are
telling you what to think about God and religion.
And
McGrath observes that if a statement does not contain error then there can be
no difference between one that is infallible and one that is just true, so one
is at a loss to explain how they are supposed to be dissimilar and distinct for
infallibility implies a gift that makes you right. He rejects the objection that when a
statement is true it does not have to be true for there is no force making it
true but an infallible one is made because it is true because of some
power. In other words, he rejects the
view that a true statement just happens to be true but an infallible one cannot
avoid being true. Since infallibility
requires the Church and pope to be as certain as possible what they want to
define is true before they define it, it follows that infallibility is not
certainty and so it is absurd. It is a
contradiction to say that such and such a teaching is infallible but you are
not sure if it is true. And since
doctrines can be and are said to be certain before they are made infallible
then what use is infallibility? It is
unethical for the people to put a declaration that is said to be infallible
before examination of the facts which is what they do when they believe the
immaculate conception or whatever because the pope said so instead of having a
look at the evidence behind the doctrine.
An all-good God would not encourage such sloth. He would not give the gift of infallibility
so that we might be lazy and like pea-brained sheep. To believe a doctrine is infallible you have
to believe that an infallible authority the Bible or Jesus gave the Church the
power to make that doctrine but there is no evidence that Jesus did that or if
he did if the Church is sticking to the conditions he laid down for
infallibility to operate. So the
infallibility claim just hangs there in mid-air like a bad stench of incense.
The
Church boasts that it needs infallibility so that we can be sure what God
said. But it has turned out that the kind
of infallibility it claims cannot function unless the Church is already certain
so how could the Church be infallible when it does not need to be? How can we avoid the conclusion that
infallibility is a deliberate hoax designed to puff up the image of the
Church? When all is said and done, the
only kind of infallibility the Church could claim is the magical type in which
one can reveal brand new doctrines never heard of before and which were learned
by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Whether it is realised or not, the pope and the Church think that they
are exactly the same as Bible style prophets giving inspired utterances and new
doctrines to the world. They are hostile
to visionaries for they think only Church leaders have a monopoly on God.
THE
PROBLEM OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY
There
is hot disagreement among theologians regarding which papal statements through
the ages was infallible and which were not.
One thing is for sure it is foolish to even consider any pope to be
infallible when Leo I declared the Greek Emperor to be guided by the Holy
Spirit and therefore incapable of doctrinal error (page 166, The Early
Church). The first time the Church
spoke of a man being infallible and it was a pampered politician!
Lots of
papal decrees seem to be in accordance with the rules for making an infallible
statement. The one there is a big
problem with is if the research leading up to the statement was undertaken
properly but this is one that is always ignored in practice. They were made to the whole Church, they were
official statements and the pope appealed to his authority under Christ and
declared that further discussion of the topic was not on. No explicit claim to infallibility was made
in the statements that are accepted as infallible such as the Immaculate
Conception and the assumption. The
Church does not require one but it has to be necessary nevertheless.
Going
by the Church rules then Pope Gelasius was infallible
then when he declared the impossibility of unbaptised
babies going to Heaven. Pope Innocent
VIII made it a sin in 1484 to have sex with demons who took human form called
incubi and succubi.
The
reason for the debates is that the Church despises many of the doctrines that
the pope advanced and wants them to be his own erroneous opinions. So the Church only takes the pope as
infallible when it agrees with him and when it does not. This approach is dishonest.
Ephesians
2 decrees that all offices in the Church make up a holy temple to the
Lord. The papacy has often been unholy
and incapable of making the Church a temple for the Lord.
It is
impossible to believe that when Acts 20 prophesied that crafty wolves would come
after the apostles were gone and devour the faith of many and not spare the
flock meaning the whole Church that a papal system would have been desired or
believed in. It is easier for a pope to
mislead the Church for all look up to him than for packs of wolves to do
it. It is complained by Protestants and
progressive Catholics that the Church puts canon law above God and the
Bible. It really does do that. But the papal system is behind this
abomination and the only way to end it is to end the papacy because the pope
depends on canon law to become a true pope.
He must not be excommunicated, he must not be a heretic and he must not
have murdered the previous pope or tricked him or the conclave into electing
him. The result is that infallibility
and the papal office and the true Church are at the mercy of the observance of
canon law. One pope did trick his
predecessor into abdicating and what about the popes we don’t know about?
BAD ANTI-INFALLIBILITY ARGUMENTS
Defenders
of Protestantism give many useless arguments against the Catholic doctrine that
the Catholic Church cannot err under certain conditions.
The
Catholic Church says she can’t append new dogmas to what the apostles taught
and says this is a teaching that cannot be wrong. Here is an illogical reply to this doctrine,
“The Church let people deny her infallible doctrines at least for a time before
she made them infallible. Prior to
December 8th, 1854, Catholics were free to deny the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception and after Pius IX infallibly created the dogma that day
they were not. The dogma would not be an
addition if it is implied by revelation.
So, when Pius said that Catholics must now accept the new dogma he was
automatically making another dogma which was an addition. This hidden dogma was that it would be a
mortal sin for a Catholic to deny the Immaculate Conception from now on though
it wasn’t before. Pius XI did create a
brand new dogma and add to the apostolic faith.”
To this
Catholics would say that making this sin is not addition to the faith for the
faith and tradition always said that if anything becomes defined as a dogma
revealed by God it would be mortally sinful to question or deny it. It teaches it by implication. Dogmas are defined or shown to be of divine
origin and are not made. They are
dogmatised because they are true.
Another
mistaken argument, “How could sinners be infallible? God could make them infallible but when they
are hostile to him they might pretend to be using the gift to deceive the
world?”
He got
sinful men to write his scriptures. He
commissioned us to preach his gospel so when we were good enough for that why
couldn’t we be made infallible? God can
prevent infallible people frauding simply by
decreeing that they will only be free from error under several strict
conditions and could intervene miraculously to stop them giving fake infallible
declarations or make sure a condition is missing when they fake. A pope who plots to define a fictitious
teaching would be struck dead or paralysed before he is able to do it. Or more probably the declaration can be made
but is instantly shot down as it is discovered not to be implied by apostolic revelation
or there is no evidence. Perhaps it
would force Christ to appear and tell the real truth. Sinners can be made infallible.
The
doctrine of the sinless conception of the Virgin is certainly a heresy and yet
the pope made it a dogma and got away with it.
Infallibility
has to do with teaching not living so anybody who says that sinners cannot have
this charism just because they are sinners is
wrong. Yet many get infallibility and impeccablity (sinlessness) mixed
up.
Protestants
sometimes quote verses that say that we must trust in God not in men as disproofs of Catholic infallibility. But Catholics see trusting in the
infallibility of the pope as trusting in a gift that the pope has bestowed on
him for the purpose of revealing things hence it is supposed to be trust in
God. Protestants trust the authors of
the scriptures so why can’t they trust the pope? What they have to do is prove that to trust
in men to convey the word of God is denying God.
CONCLUSION
The
pope is not infallible. His claim to be
infallible shows that he is a fraud for he has no excuse for believing that he
is. If he is infallible then he can proclaim any
doctrine he likes if Jesus promised that the Church would never be led astray
when identifying a doctrine irrevocably as part of what God has revealed.
He doesn't need to worry about research and indeed research would indicate that
he isn't so confident that his teaching can be infallible. Any priest could become pope so what
does that say about them?
BOOKS CONSULTED
A CONCISE HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, Thomas Bokenkotter, Image Books, New York, 1979
A HANDBOOK
ON THE PAPACY, William Shaw Kerr, Marshall Morgan & Scott, London,
1962
A WOMAN
RIDES THE BEAST, Dave Hunt Harvest House Eugene Oregon 1994
ALL ONE
BODY – WHY DON’T WE AGREE? Erwin W Lutzer, Tyndale, Illinois,
1989
ANTICHRIST
IS HE HERE OR IS HE TO COME? Protestant
Truth Society, London
APOLOGIA
PRO VITA SUA, John Henry Newman (Cardinal),
Everyman’s Library, London/New York, 1955
BELIEVING
IN GOD, PJ McGrath, Millington Books in Association
with Wolfhound, Dublin, 1995
BURNING
TRUTHS, Basil Morahan, Western People Printing, Ballina, 1993
CATHOLICISM, Richard P McBrien, HarperSanFrancisco, New York, 1994
CATHOLICISM
AND CHRISTIANITY, Cecil John Cadoux, George Allen
& Unwin Ltd, 1928
CATHOLICISM
AND FUNDAMENTALISM, Karl Keating, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1988
CHRISTIAN
ORDER Number 12 Vol 35 Fr Paul Crane 53 Penerley Road, Catford,
DAWN OR
TWILIGHT? HM Carson, IVP, Leicester, 1976
DIFFICULTIES,
Mgr Ronald Knox and Sir Arnold Lunn, Eyre & Spottiswoode, London, 1958
ENCOUNTERS
OF THE FOURTH KIND, Dr RJ Hymers, Bible Voice, Inc,
Van Nuys, CA, 1976
FROM
ROME TO CHRIST, J Ward, Irish Church Missions, Dublin
FUTURIST
OR HISTORICIST? Basil C Mowll, Protestant Truth
Society, London
HANDBOOK TO THE CONTROVERSY WITH
HANS
KUNG HIS WORK AND HIS WAY, Hermann Haring and Karl-Josef Kuschel,
Fount-Collins,
HITLER’S
POPE, THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII, John Cornwell, Viking, London, LONDON
1999
HOW
SURE ARE THE FOUNDATIONS? Colin Badger,
Wayside Press, Canada
INFALLIBILITY
IN THE CHURCH, Patrick Crowley, CTS, London, 1982
INFALLIBLE? Hans Kung, Collins, London, 1980
IS THE
PAPACY PREDICTED BY ST PAUL? Bishop
Christopher Wordsworth, The
LECTURES
AND REPLIES, Thomas Carr, Archbishop of Melbourne,
NO
LIONS IN THE HIERARCHY, Fr Joseph Dunn, Columba
Press, Dublin, 1994
PAPAL SIN, STRUCTURES OF DECEIT, Garry Wills, Darton Longman and Todd, London, 2000
PETER
AND THE OTHERS, Rev FH Kinch
MA, Nelson & Knox Ltd, Townhall Street,
Belfast
POPE FICTION, Patrick Madrid, Basilica Press, San Diego California 1999
PUTTING
AWAY CHILDISH THINGS, Uta Ranke-Heinemann,
HarperCollins, San Francisco, 1994
REASON
AND BELIEF, Brand Blanschard, George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London, 1974
REASONS
FOR HOPE, Editor Jeffrey A Mirus, Christendom College
Press, Virginia, 1982
ROMAN
CATHOLIC CLAIMS, Charles Gore MA, Longmans, London, 1894
ROMAN
CATHOLIC OBJECTIONS ANSWERED, Rev H O Lindsay, John T Drought Ltd, Dublin
ROMAN
CATHOLICISM, Lorraine Boettner, Presbyterian and
Reformed Publishing Company, Phillipsburg, NJ,
1962
SECRETS
OF ROMANISM, Joseph Zacchello, Loizeaux
Brothers, New Jersey, 1984
ST
PETER AND ROME, J B S, Irish Church Missions, Dublin
THE
CHURCH AND INFALLIBILITY, B C Butler, The Catholic Book Club, London,
undated
THE EARLY CHURCH, Henry
Chadwick, Pelican, Middlesex, 1987
THE
LATE GREAT PLANET EARTH, Hal Lindsay, Lakeland, London, 1974
THE
PAPACY IN PROPHECY! Christadelphian
Press, West Beach S A, 1986
THE
PAPACY ITS HISTORY AND DOGMAS, Leopold D E Smith, Protestant Truth Society,
London
THE PETRINE CLAIMS OF ROME, Canon JE Oulton DD, John T Drought Ltd, Dublin
THE POWER AND THE GLORY, Inside the Dark Heart of John Paul II's Vatican, David Yallop, Constable, London, 2007
THE
PRIMITIVE FAITH AND ROMAN CATHOLIC DEVELOPMENTS, Rev John A Gregg, BD, APCK, Dublin, 1928
THE SHE-POPE,
Peter Stanford, William Hienemann, Random House,
THE
TRADITIONAL
DOCTRINES OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH EXAMINED, Rev CCJ
Butlin, Protestant Truth Society, London
VICARS
OF CHRIST, Peter de Rosa, Corgi, London, 1993
WAS
PETER THE FIRST POPE? J Bredin, Evangelical Protestant Society, Belfast
WHATEVER
HAPPENED TO HEAVEN?, Dave Hunt, Harvest House,
NOTE:
RECOMMENDED BOOK, ROME HAS SPOKEN
ROME
HAS SPOKEN, A GUIDE TO FORGOTTEN PAPAL STATEMENTS AND HOW THEY HAVE CHANGED
THROUGH THE CENTURIES, Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben
(Editors), Crossroad Publishing, New York, 1998
This
book is a goldmine for the person who wants to shake off the guilt of
disobeying the pope. It is liberty to
the slavery the pope wants to subject them to.
It is basically a collection of hard to come by official Church texts
that show that the popes did not always teach the same thing.
The book
proves that ecumenical councils regarded some popes as heretics and
excommunicated them (page 13). We are
informed that statements from the early Church that seem to indicate the bishop
of Rome is the head of the Church and keeps to the truth may have been forged
for in the mid-eighth century a lot of forging and interfering with texts by
copyists took place in order to help the papacy take over the Church (page
12). The book quotes the decree of the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that states that Pope John Paul II
made a statement that belongs to the faith and which is therefore without error
and irreformable and irreversible when he said the
Church had no authority to ordain women (page 17). The doctrine of St Thomas Aquinas and Pope Innocent
III that you should deny Christ if your conscience commands it but you will
still be damned for doing so is spelled out in this book (page 27). Very reasonable and kindly men these two! Chapter 4 contains commands from the popes
who wanted heretics persecuted. Innocent
III said this was to be a perpetual law and that even the house a heretic lived
in was to be burned down. Pius VI in
1791 condemned encouraging people to think for themselves and St Pius X opposed
the separation of Church and State in 1906.
Benedict XIV forbade Jews and Christians to live in the same cities in
1751 in his encyclical A Quo Primum (page 71). Pius XI in Mortalium
Annos in 1928 said that Catholics cannot attend
Protestant worship and unity can only happen if the Protestants return to the
true Church. The papacy used all its
power, secular and spiritual, to maintain the practice of buying and selling
slaves even if they were Catholics (page 88).
The Holy Office of the evil Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1866 stated that slavery
was acceptable in divine and natural law and should be (page 84).
One
omission in the book is that Pope John Paul II now forbids capital punishment
though tradition and the Bible command it.
Catholics say that he is not saying capital punishment is wrong full
stop but only that it is not necessary today and the Bible regulations are only
meant to be carried out if the Church runs the state which it does not. The capital laws of the Bible were never
necessary and God could not object to Christians using the state to kill people
their God wants dead like heretics, homosexuals and adulterers. For him to object now, would be the same as
saying he was wrong to go so far. If
killing those people was right then, then it is always right. And especially today when we have
tremendously better resources for establishing the guilt of a felon than what
existed in the days God demanded liberal executing by stoning of certain kinds
of “sinners”. Also when he demanded death
not by strangulation but by stoning – an exceptionally cruel method – it shows
God’s full and unhesitant approval of capital punishment. It is not a necessary evil but something
DESIRABLE. The pope is both condoning
the crime of capital punishment and saying he does not – another crime. The Catholic view that capital punishment was
encouraged by God to protect the state and its members is not true because the
Bible laws could have done that without commanding the killing of those people
and also because the Bible says these killings are punishment. Now could they be punishment if you need them
to protect others? That would not be
punishment but self-defence. The laws of
the Bible had nothing to do with protecting but about showing the people who
was boss, God and about God getting his own back on those who ignored his law.
THE WEB
Pope
John Paul II condemned as an immoral and traitorous and heretical pope
Here is
a site that shows how Catholic scholars lie and distort the facts about how
history disproves their religion
This
site exposes Catholic lies to cover up how the case of Pope Honorius
refutes infallibility
http://aomin.org/failuretodocument.html
website click on the link below
Read www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com
Read www.the-pope.com/library.html
Read www.trosch.org
Read http://www.geocities.com/prakashjm45/michaeline.html
Read http://www.sedevacantist.com/pontiffs.html
This page shows how unsure the Catholic Church is of
exactly how many popes it has had
Read http://www.sspxasia.com/Documents/SiSiNoNo/2003_March/errors_of_vatican_II.htm
Read http://www.sxws.com/charis/pope-20.htm
for proof that the Church has no idea how many real or false popes it has had
see also http://www.trosch.org/for/popes-ca.htm
http://www.catholicrestoration.org/
www.tracts.ukgo.com/loraine_boettner.htm