the catholic church has never contradicted itself

Hi, I accept your challenge : ) This is my first debate so sorry if I get the format wrong. It doesn't look like you made too many arguments in the first round, but since we have limited space of just three rounds I'm just going t jump into it. If Pro objects, then we can work something out. It looks like much of the BOP for carrying the debate is on me so for now I'll maintain that it's fair to do it this way. I'll my opening clarifications here, round 2 for additional arguments (with examples), round 3 for rebuttals and conclusions. ***Clarifications- (Since Pro set the rules, this is more clarification than argument) It's tempting for me to wonder if Pro hasn't admitted defeat before beginning. It's at least a strange thing to say “The Catholic Church has no contradictions,” and then go o to list a large number of contradictions that don't count as contradictions for no stated reason. Therefore, I would ask the following clarifications by Pro before they go on to rebut my arguments. Clarification 1)What constitutes a “bad” pope? Could Pro list the popes that don't count? I will maintain in my later argument that if Pro doesn't do this, they can simply maintain that any pope that makes contradictory decrees to later or earlier pope is “bad. ” As I hope you can all agree, this would be a rather poor conduct point, and it would constitute “moving the goal post. ” Making this clear up front would help. Additionally, making it clear why a “bad” pope doesn't constitute a contradiction in the Catholic church would also be important to the debate. Clarification 2) Why doesn't limbo or salvation outside of the Catholic church count? If I knew the principle behind why these don't count, it would help me better understand the fine meaning of “the catholic church has never contradicted itself. ” and what exactly we are debating, since these same like issues within the Catholic church as a whole, so I don't understand why they would be dis-included. Clarification 3) Why do “corrupt” officials not count? If a pope said something that spurred on the inquisition, then shouldn't this be held up as an example? Otherwise Pro's statements of “the inquisition doesn't count” and “infallible statements by popes do count” are in direct contradiction. Perhaps a definition of “corrupt” would be in order. Clarification 4) I wouldn't think that whether popes are human or not is in question. Whether what they say is divinely inspired (and thus never in contradiction)is what matters. It would help if we carefully outline what “doctrine” is, and which types of quotes matter and why. Otherwise there could be semantic and moving the goalpost shenanigans happening later, and that would hardly make for a good debate. For now, I'm going to assume anything that a pope can be quoted as saying directly, or anything that a council of major leadership in the Catholic church said, as well as anything considered as official doctrine by official catholic leadership in the present day counts. And that a “bad” pope is defined as a pope that did not have full power at the time. Meaning, the leadership including the popes should not be significantly in question by people who lived at the time. I will also possibly be inclined to grant specific exclusions provided they are made before the arguments about them crop up. Clarification conclusion- Sorry for the rigamarole, but I figure this is important to agree on up front. If I don't do this, then you could end up basically arguing that popes who agree with you don't contradict things that you agree with, which is hardly something I would contest. If Pro goes back on any definition of terms (or if I do) then it will be seen as bad conduct (at least by me anyway). I realize you may not be able to cover all popes you consider bad in the beginning, but I would urge you to set specific rubrics for bad, as otherwise you could just use “that pope was bad” for anything I say, which would be pretty frustrating and suspicious. A specific rubric would help. Preferably a list, as well as reasons for the pope being “bad” so I can contest it. You can make this up, or link to an “official list” which would be more preferable. Mini Clarification- The debate is about contradiction, not about whether this means that Catholic Church is true and divinely inspired, so I'd request we stay away from that to avoid going off track. After all, people can be wrong without contradicting themselves, including for very long stretches of time. :)