Fallibility of Popes 3

The Light Shines in the Darkness...

Pope Boniface VIII vs. Vatican II

At the very beginning of the 14^th century, Pope Boniface VIII issued the famous Papal Bull, Unam Sanctam, which says in part:

“So, when the Greeks and others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they must confess that they are not of Christ’s sheep, even as the Lord says in John, ‘There is one fold and one shepherd.’”

-Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam

Here, the Pope of Rome, in an official decree (see the next quote) clearly excludes the Eastern Orthodox from salvation. The last part of the bull states why:

“Furthermore we declare, state, define, and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff.”

-Pope Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam

The words of Unam Sanctam, “…we declare, state, define, and pronounce…”, are very similar to the words that made the Immaculate Conception of Mary a dogma:

“…we, with the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ…do declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the Virgin Mary was, in the first instance of her conception, preserved untouched by any taint of original guilt…”

-Ineffabilis Deus

Clearly, Unam Sanctam is an ex cathedra statement on faith and morals, and thus, it meets the criteria required by Vatican I to be an infallible decree of a pope. Recently however, the Roman Church has reversed its stance on the Eastern Orthodox and Evangelical Protestants in Vatican II. This is clearly shown forth in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

“[Protestants] who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic church…Those who believe in Christ and have been properly baptized are put in a certain, although imperfect, communion with the Catholic church. With the Orthodox churches, this communion is so profound that it lacks little to attain the fullness that would permit a common celebration of the Lord’s Eucharist.”

-Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 838

This is a clear contradiction between two supposedly infallible statements. To say at one time that the Eastern Churches and all other non-Catholics are “not of Christ’s sheep” (i.e. excluded from salvation) and then say, 650 years later, that the Eastern Churches are “brothers in the Lord” totally destroys the infallibility of the Pope of Rome.

John XXII

For this one, I will merely quote from the great Protestant reformer, John Calvin:

“But let us suppose that the iniquity of these pontiffs whom I have mentioned is not known as they have not published it either in sermons or writings, but betrayed it only at table or in their chamber, or at least within the walls of their court. But if they would have the privilege which they claim to be confirmed, they must expunge from their list of pontiffs John XXII, who publicly maintained that the soul is mortal, and perishes with the body till the day of resurrection. And to show you that the whole See with its chief props then utterly fell, none of the Cardinals opposed his madness, only the Faculty of Paris urged the king to insist on a recantation. The king interdicted his subjects from communion with him, unless he would immediately recant, and published his interdict in the usual way by a herald. Thus necessitated, he abjured his error. This example relieves me from the necessity of disputing further with my opponents, when they say that the Roman See and its pontiffs cannot err in the faith, from its being said to Peter, “I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not.” Certainly by this shameful lapse he fell from the faith, and became a noted proof to posterity, that all are not Peters who succeed Peter in the episcopates; although the thing is too childish in itself to need an answer: for if they insist on applying every thing that was said to Peter to the successors of Peter, it will follow, that they are all Satans, because our Lord once said to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto me.” It is as easy for us to retort the latter saying as for them to adduce the former.”

-John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 4.7.28

Philip Schaff comments on John XXII:

“If the Spiritual Franciscans had been capable of taking secret delight in an adversary’s misfortunes, they would have had occasion for it in the widely spread charge that John was a heretic. At any rate, he came as near being a heretic as a pope can be. His heresy concerned the nature of the beatific vision after death. In a sermon on All Souls’, 1331, he announced that the blessed dead do not see God until the general resurrection. In at least two more sermons he repeated this utterance. John, who was much given to theologizing, Ockam declared to be wholly ignorant in theology. This Schoolman, Cesena, and others pronounced the view heretical. John imprisoned an English Dominican who preached against him, and so certain was he of his case that he sent the Franciscan general, Gerardus Odonis, to Paris to get the opinion of the university.” (emphasis mine)

-Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. VI, ch.1, part 7

http://www.ccel.org/s/schaff/history/6_ch01.htm

It is obvious from the above citations that many theologians in the medieval church did believe that a pope could err.

Sixtus V

[For this one, go to http://members.aol.com/jasonte/bullunam.htm and scroll down to Pope Sixtus V, Aeternus Ille. I could not have done a better job.]

Paul V and Urban VIII

William Webster explains this one:

“In the seventeenth century, in the reigns of Paul V and Urban VIII, the Roman Catholic Church officially censured, and then condemned, Galileo for teaching the Copernican theory of the solar system. The Church was not claiming authority over areas of science. Rather, it condemned the theory because, in its view, it was contrary to the teachings of Scripture and the Church possessed the infallible right to determine the proper interpretation of Scripture. With the full approval and authority of the pope, the Church declared and defined an issue of faith which was subsequently shown to be wrong. It was not that the Bible itself was wrong, but that the particular interpretation the Roman Catholic Church had adopted was wrong.”

-William Webster, The Church of Rome at the Bar of History (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1995), p.69.

From the earliest ages of the Christian Church, pagan Greek philosophy has seeped into the theology and interpretation of Scripture of various theologians. Ever since Thomas Aquinas made Aristotelian thought part of the theology of the Roman Catholic Church, the true interpretation of Scripture has been bent, twisted out of shape, and molded along Greek philosophical lines. This is especially seen in the Roman Church’s interpretation of Scripture concerning the nature of the solar system. Adopting the rationalistic view of the pagan Greek philosopher, Aristotle, the Roman Church believed that all bodies of our solar system revolved around the Earth. Thus, the Roman pontiffs officially condemned Galileo for believing in heliocentricity (i.e. all bodies revolve around the sun), and the above mentioned popes based this off of their official interpretation of Scripture. George Salmon writes:

“The history of Galileo makes short work of the question: Is it possible for the Church of Rome to err in her interpretation of Scripture, or to mistake in what she teaches to be an essential part of the Christian faith? She can err, for she has erred.”

-George Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church (London: Murray, 1914), p.252.

In conclusion, the fallibility of the Roman pontiff is clearly seen from the evidence of history. In the above article, I have made reference to a dozen bishops of Rome that have either clearly embraced heresy or contradict later dogmatic teachings of the Roman Church. I have quoted both Protestant as well as Roman Catholic reputable Church historians corroborating my point. Lastly, I have dealt with the defenses that Roman Catholic apologists use to try and salvage these erring pontiffs and answered them from historical scholarship. However, no matter how many proofs that are given that the Church can err in matters concerning doctrine and morals, Roman apologists will accept no evidence, no matter how great, that their Church has erred. Much like the dogmatic agnostic, their standard of proof dies the death of a thousand qualifications:

“What it comes down to is that no matter what instance we point to where a pope appears to be violating the standards of infallibility, the Catholic apologist will always and automatically argue that extenuating circumstances disallow the application of the standard, so that the pope was not speaking “officially,” or was not speaking in conjunction with the bishops, or some other such qualification. The Roman Catholic notion of papal infallibility strains credulity because it is engineered in such a way as to be completely unfalsible.”

-Eric Svendsen, Evangelical Answers (Lindenhurst, New York: Reformation Press, 1999), p.34.

According to Roman Catholic dogmatic teaching, it is a heresy and a sin to disobey the pope even if he is not speaking ex cathedra. Therefore, during the time in which Liberius was teaching Arianism or when Zosimus declared Pelagianism to be orthodox, a faithful Roman Catholic would have had to believe in a damnable heresy. So, if you are Roman Catholic or thinking of becoming Roman Catholic, you need to honestly ask yourself a question: Should I place the trust of my soul in the hands of a denomination’s hierarchy which has frequently taught damnable heresy only to be ‘corrected’ years later? If you have read the above article with an open mind, then I hope you will consider this question with an honest heart.

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Also, some helpful audio on this topic can be found at:

http://www.straitgate.com/webster/

http://www.straitgate.com/aom/dl/00.htm (July 22)

Some helpful online reading can be found here:

http://www.christiantruth.com/pope.html

http://aomin.org/ThanksHonor.html

http://members.aol.com/jasonte2/bullunam.htm