What *Doesn’t* Papal Infallibility Look Like?

From my interview with Catholic Answers’ Cy Kellett:

Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, I think that the reason we get this wrong is because we think of something like papal infallibility as something belonging to the pope or for the pope’s own good, and that’s just wrong. That’s not the way that papal infallibility works and it’s not for whom papal infallibility works. In a nutshell, I’d say the minimum case for papal infallibility sounds something like this. Jesus at the Last Supper, John 17, prays that we’ll all be one. And so there’s this call to unity very explicitly not for just the first generation, you can see in His prayer, it is the only prayer that’s explicitly for us, because He prays not only for those present but for those who will believe through their testimony. So that’s us.

Cy Kellett:
That’s us.

Joe Heschmeyer:
So He’s not just saying be united in the first century, He’s saying be united in the 21st century and in the 31st century and so on. So we have this call to unity, and the flip side to that is in Galatians 5, Saint Paul talks about schism and party spirit as works of the flesh and those who do them won’t inherit the kingdom of God. [….] So it’s this idea that you have to be united as Christian, you have to be, but heresy is also a mortal sin. You can’t have that unity at the expense of truth. There is a Methodist scholar, Ben Witherington, who talks about how from the Protestant perspective they’ve chosen truth at the expense of unity and Catholics have chosen unity at the expense of truth, because they think we’re wrong. The first thing I say to that is I’m glad that he sees that they have given up unity in their pursuit of truth. But the second thing I’d say is there’s no way that could be the right answer, because Christ has said, “You can’t give up truth and you can’t give up unity.” You’ve got to hold to both.

Cy Kellett:
Right. You’re exactly right.

Joe Heschmeyer:
So it’s got to be unity in the truth. Because otherwise you’re saying you don’t believe at least one part of the gospel, the part where He said we can all be one.

Cy Kellett:
Yeah. Okay. I’ve never, ever thought of it that way before. Okay, so the pope then at the minimum is the sign of this unity, is the cause of this unity, is the what?

Joe Heschmeyer:
Some of the Eastern Fathers call him an icon of unity.

Cy Kellett:
Okay.

Joe Heschmeyer:
So he’s kind of the focal point of the unity of the church, and the way this works kind of negatively is the Holy Spirit prevents the pope from requiring anything that would cause us to have to sacrifice truth to obey. So the pope says, “You have to believe X,” X cannot be heresy. Because if X is heresy, we’re in this catch 22 where we have to choose to obey at the expense of truth or disobey at the expense of unity and neither of those are permitted to us.

Cy Kellett:
Okay.

Joe Heschmeyer:
So we know if the pope says you have to do X, it can’t be false, therefore it must be true. So infallibility, like that’s how it works. It’s not everything the pope says is brilliant. He could give 20 homilies about the topic and just butcher them, but you’re not required to say, “Oh, the way he worded it in the homily is the best way.” In other words, think of infallibility not from the pope’s perspective, but from the believer’s perspective. Infallibility is to protect you and me.

Read or listen to the whole thing here!

4 comments

  1. “He seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth”.

    Not “unity”, and particularly not the worldly or external unity you seem to refer to.

    Does God desire unity be enforced, defined or imposed?

    The Body of Christ is those who are acceptable to God and what can make us acceptable except humility and obedience in carrying out His will to the best of our ability? I will not say “to the best of our understanding” because that is the road that led us to where we are now. We need His understanding, not ours. That is why He said that the Holy Spirit “will lead you into all truth”, not the Bishop of Rome.

    The Body of Christ is unified: those who are acceptable to God are the Body of Christ. The idea that one particular denomination has a lock hold on salvation is the legalism of the pharisees; a human vanity and delusion. God alone will judge in the person of His Son.

    1. James,

      What’s the Scriptural basis for your claim that “the Body of Christ is those who are acceptable to God”? Christ regularly speaks of the Kingdom as containing good and bad fish, wheat and weeds, etc. St. Paul notes that the highest rank within the Body of Christ is Apostle… and yet one of the first Twelve Apostles was Judas Iscariot. So there’s a lot of Scriptural evidence that seems to say the opposite of what you’re claiming. What’s the evidence for it?

      In Christ,

      Joe

      1. “The Kingdom” Joe? I cannot think of anywhere Christ said that the Kingdom of God contains “good and bad fish” as you term it. The wheat and the tares parable surely refers to the world as a whole, not the Body of Christ. Likewise the vineyard and those who worked it, referred to Children of Israel, or to be more precise, those of them who did not please God, for we know that some did, else Christ would hardly have said that He came “to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

        That Iscariot was chosen was in the purpose of God. Why? Perhaps he was a metaphor for the fallen angel whose instrument he became? Such questions are indeed interesting, but hardly part of Christ’s injunctions to us.

        Likewise it was His purpose that the Apostles were from the varied and largely uneducated backgrounds that they were.

        Philosophers in clerical or monastic garb no doubt passed many a pleasant hour on such debates in centuries gone by. What good it did their souls or their fellows is debatable.

        Fundamentally, we have a human tendency to want to see the Body of Christ as some sort of at least partly temporal, or to be precise, carnal institution. Christ said the day of temples and legalism was over. His Father was seeking those who would worship Him in spirit and in truth. Christ condensed the Law of Moses into the two Great Commandments. This surely is what He meant by “in spirit and in truth”: the substance, the meaning, the purpose, the spirit of the law, not the letters of it.

        Which is of the Divine and which stinks of the world, the flesh and devil?

        As for ranks in the Kingdom of Heaven, surely Christ made his point with the little child? Or does worldly thinking impinge on this as well. Yes, He did say that the Apostles would sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. The rest of us it seems are privileged to be judged by Him alone. Amen, amen.

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