From: rice@sumex-aim.Stanford.EDU (James Rice)
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic
Subject: Papal Infallibility [was Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up?]
Date: 6 Jan 93 09:17:25
Organization: Knowledge Systems Lab, Stanford University
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In-reply-to: rice@sumex-aim.Stanford.EDU's message of 5 Jan 93 11:43:33

Having now got back to my office, I offer the following as being the
closest thing to the (originally presumably latin) text of the
statement of papal infallibility.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh (1911) edition,
Vol.  14, p 511.  (incidentally, the article on
infallibility goes on for nearly four columns):


     The infalibility of the pope was not defined until 1870 at
     the Vatican Council; this definition does not constitute,
     strictly speaking, a dogmatic innovation, as if the pope
     had not hitherto enjoyed this privilege, or as if the
     Church, as a whole, had admitted to the contrary; it is
     the newly formulated definition of a dogma which, like all
     those defined by the Councils, continued to grow into an
     ever more definite form, ripening, as it were, in the
     always living community of the Church.  The exact formula
     for the papal infallibility is given by the Vatican
     Council in the following terms (Constis. \em{Pastor
     aeternus}, cap.iv); "we teach and define as a divinely
     revealed dogma, that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks
     \em{ex cathedra} -- i.e.  when, in his character as Pastor
     and Doctor of all Christians, and in virtue of his supreme
     apostolic authority, he lays down that a certain doctrine
     concerning faith or morals is binding upon the universal
     Church, -- possesses, by Divine assistance which was
     promised to him in the person of the blessed Saint Peter,
     that same infallibility which the Divine Redeemer thought
     fit to endow His Church, to define its doctrine with
     regard to faith and morals; and consequently, that these
     definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable in
     themselves, and not in consequence of the consent of the
     Church."



Although there is clearly a lot of discussion on this issue, I think
it is reasonable to conclude from this that the pronouncement is
retroactive and is woolily worded enough to allow it to cover almost
anything the pope says/does with the possible exception of kissing the
ground at airports.  It also gives the church a possible out in that
it allows them to say ~"he wasn't \em{really} talking about
faith/morals, he was just giving a personal opinion."  Maybe they
could even hint that he wasn't being a real xian.

I have heard, however, that this dogma somewhat puts the RC church in
a box because of its inability to undo the bull-headedness of past (or
present popes).  I have heard, though this is apocryphal, that the
college of cardinals is actually in favour of "non-natural"
contraception.  This also seems to be true of a bunch of US RC
leaders.  However even if they managed to get a pro-contraception pope
into the Vatican, they'd be unable to undo the damage caused by this
and past popes.






Rice.
Newsgroups: sci.skeptic