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Notes -
Is The Pope Catholic? No Really
Rumors are swirling that Pope Francis will demand the resignation of Joseph Strickland, the popular conservative bishop of Tyler, Texas. He is notable as the only bishop to personally attend the protest against the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence at Dodgers Stadium. Meanwhile, bishops in Germany are now openly blessing same-sex couples in direct violation of Catholic doctrine. A cursory search reveals no disciplinary action against any of these bishops in response. By their fruits you will know them. In rationalist terms, this is called revealed preference.
This would be less of a problem for religions like Mormonism that allow for continuing revelation. Contrary to popular belief, the Pope is not a prophet. He can not walk out onto the balcony of St. Peter's and say, "Sorry guys, just talked to Jesus. The second coming is canceled." He would be immediately recognized as a fraud. He is bound* both by the deposit of faith and the dogmatic pronouncements of the church.
This leads to an interesting Ship of Theseus problem. The Catholic Church has had it's parishioners, officials, and doctrine replaced. Is it still the Catholic Church? It's not even just the gender stuff. Here is Pope Francis participating in a literal pagan ritual. I have seen him apologize for the residential school system, but I have yet to see him apologize for violating the first commandment.
*in theory lol
Ah, Tyler. If there was any place I’d have expected to be in the news for this…no, I still wouldn’t expect Tyler.
Let’s see what Strickland actually said…
That second one is what makes me a little skeptical. Let’s try a site that isn’t quite so obviously partisan:
Now, I’m not an expert on Catholicism. It sounds like Strickland is making the kind of moves which would be untenable even in a secular workplace. If he’s so insistent that the Catholic Church has been invaded, undermined, and otherwise corrupted, perhaps he shouldn’t be calling himself a Catholic.
Contrary to popular belief, Catholics don't believe the Pope to be generally infallible, only when speaking Ex Cathedra, which hasn't happened since 1950. The hierarchy of the ordained also isn't quite military-like, there's quite a bit of independence even at the level of priests. Our archdiocese is going through a restructuring process over the next year and one administrative detail is that the archbishop has requested the resignation of every priest in advance to make moving them around easier. They could refuse to resign, at which point some kind of due process kicks in, the archbishop doesn't force their resignation unilaterally.
There's also the matter of quiet disobedience in a leftist direction going unaddressed, while the people who noisily point it out like Strickland wind up having their basic competence questioned. One of the most appalling cases of this happened just recently when an archibishop gave a prominent Muslim the Eucharist.
There is serious schism potential at the moment.
The Pope is only infallible when speaking Ex Cathedra. But in addition to that, a core Catholic doctrine is that the Pope is protected by from the Holy Spirit from teaching heresy, thus a Pope will not teach something that directly contradict holy scripture or established doctrines of faith. Michael Lofton has a good podcast on this issue.
Thus there is a big difference between accusing the Pope of "making imprudent statements that could be easily misinterpreted as heresy" and actually claiming the Pope taught heresy. The latter is a much worse charge for a Bishop to make, as it lays the groundwork for schism.
Pope Honorius was actually convicted of heresy and the Church kept going.
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This is a teaching of the church, but as far as I can tell it has never been infallibility defined. If a pope were to contradict a dogma, even in his magisterium, the dogma wins and the non-infallible teaching is falsified.
What I find particularly interesting is that until this happens, faithful Catholics are still bound to “adhere with religious submission of will and intellect” to the non-infallible teaching. Even if Michael Lofton secretly believes in his heart of hearts that it’s only a matter of time before Francis steps over the line, he’s not supposed to tell you that.
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