Early last week, Germany's highest ranking Roman Catholic, Bishop Karl Lehmann, touched off the rumor mill by conjecturing what might happen if the pope were to resign. Thomas Rausch, professor of Catholic theology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Part of the problem is that the doctrine of infallibility is widely misunderstood. Richard McBrien, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. Catholics believe that, unlike the Bible, such pronouncements are not divinely inspired, but are simply free from error.
Most popes live and die without ever having exercised an infallible act.
The last infallible act was in 1950, the declaration of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary into heaven. At least four popes have resigned or abdicated their office before death, he said. The most recent one, Gregory XII, resigned during the Great Western Schism in order to clear up multiple claims to the papacy. In one case the church encountered difficulties having both a reigning and retired pope, says McBrien. Pope Boniface the VIII, who came to power in 1294, kept his popular, but physically frail predecessor St. Celestine V under house arrest because he feared that Celestine would still have a following.