Paxaeon
Banned
- Joined
- Mar 7, 2014
- Messages
- 2,029
- Reaction score
- 861
- Location
- NE WI.
- Gender
- Female
- Political Leaning
- Other
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I’m a non-catholic who attended a Catholic university. At the friendly behest of a Jesuit I found myself arguing a lot with, he allowed me to audit a non-theological course on the mechanics behind Catholicism he was teaching. Among the many topics covered was “Ex Cathedra” (from the throne) or in the colloquial; Papal Infallibility.
Infallibility is a widely misunderstood concept, even by most Catholics. It’s not a “power” like Superman has, but in Catholic lingo it’s more like a grace or gift bestowed upon Peter and his successors, aka: Popes.
For starters, lets say the Pope is “infallible in all things”, which he isn’t; just in matters of faith and morals, but for the sake of argument, lets say 10 of the most brilliant quantum physics minds got together and lay out a test of the 10 most difficult, if not impossible to answer, technical questions. Using his ability of Infallibility, what score would the Pope get?
Most likely, he’d put down his pen or pencil and hand in a black sheet getting a zero on the test.
Infallibility is not the ability of coming up with the right answer, that’s impeccability, ---- infallibility is being incapable of providing the “wrong answer” or “incapable of error”. Big difference.
Ex Cathedra, is the mechanism by which infallibility is used and is a long involved process. A Pope can only do this in conjunction with what is called The Magisterium of Catholic Church. Ex Cathedra is rarely used. The last time was in 1950, defining the Assumption of Mary into Heaven.
Anyways, when a Pope, lets say Frank, makes statements about secular issues, he is not invoking infallibility nor even Catholic Dogma…he just giving his opinion, albeit filtered through his Catholic beliefs such as charity, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, etc.
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I’m a non-catholic who attended a Catholic university. At the friendly behest of a Jesuit I found myself arguing a lot with, he allowed me to audit a non-theological course on the mechanics behind Catholicism he was teaching. Among the many topics covered was “Ex Cathedra” (from the throne) or in the colloquial; Papal Infallibility.
Infallibility is a widely misunderstood concept, even by most Catholics. It’s not a “power” like Superman has, but in Catholic lingo it’s more like a grace or gift bestowed upon Peter and his successors, aka: Popes.
For starters, lets say the Pope is “infallible in all things”, which he isn’t; just in matters of faith and morals, but for the sake of argument, lets say 10 of the most brilliant quantum physics minds got together and lay out a test of the 10 most difficult, if not impossible to answer, technical questions. Using his ability of Infallibility, what score would the Pope get?
Most likely, he’d put down his pen or pencil and hand in a black sheet getting a zero on the test.
Infallibility is not the ability of coming up with the right answer, that’s impeccability, ---- infallibility is being incapable of providing the “wrong answer” or “incapable of error”. Big difference.
Ex Cathedra, is the mechanism by which infallibility is used and is a long involved process. A Pope can only do this in conjunction with what is called The Magisterium of Catholic Church. Ex Cathedra is rarely used. The last time was in 1950, defining the Assumption of Mary into Heaven.
Anyways, when a Pope, lets say Frank, makes statements about secular issues, he is not invoking infallibility nor even Catholic Dogma…he just giving his opinion, albeit filtered through his Catholic beliefs such as charity, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, etc.
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