The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church (AKA the Magisterium) believes that it is infallible. Seriously, it's in the Catechism that they wrote, they believe that they received this charism (spiritual gift) of infallibility directly from Jesus. Paragraph 889 of the CCC (Catechism of the Catholic Church) states in part:
... the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. (emphasis mine)
I'm not going to pretend that Protestants are better at morals than the Roman Catholic Magisterium, nor will I say that Jews, Muslims, and Atheists have a closer shot at being infallible than Mr. Pope - we are all sinners (emphasis God's, see Ecclesiastes 7:20 for details) not one of us is capable of not sinning, even when ex cathedra.
I've been told by several people knowledgeable in the dogma of the catholic church that we Protestants do not understand papal infallibility, this gift only happens when the pope is speaking ex cathedra which they tell me means when he's acting as the head of their church. However ex cathedra really means when he's being infallible. So in other words if someone tells you "he's only infallible when he's ex cathedra" really means "he's only infallible when he's being infallible"
So confusing, let's turn to the bible... what does the bible say about Mr. Pope?
Here is my response to the whole idea of the papacy:
ReplyDeletehttps://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2010/06/papacy-infallibility-and-magisterium.html
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete