Never Wrong? Not Quite!

Many Catholics nowadays can think of at least one friend of family member who has strayed from the faith. It's heartbreaking to know that somehow they missed the message. In frustration you might wonder if you could have said or done something that would have made a difference. The sad reality is that most people leave the Church because of what they think is true about it, not because of what is true about it.

Take the pope, for example: I have heard people say that the pope is only “a figurehead,” a mere “elected official.” The problem with this view is that it sees the papacy in only secular terms.

In this sort of discussion, try to get the person to see for himself that there is a spiritual component involved. Say, for example: “Yes, I would agree that the pope is an elected official, but who is he elected by—men or by God?” Help them see how the Holy Spirit operates in the election of the pope and in the Church today through the charism of papal infallibility.

Infallibility means that the pope and the bishops in union with him are protected by the Holy Spirit from teaching error when it comes to matters of faith and morals. No, that doesn't mean that the pope is sinless or right about absolutely anything and everything. He goes to confession just like any other Catholic. But, when he teaches on faith and morals in an official capacity, we can be sure that we are hearing the Holy Spirit speak through him.

This can be verified by several passages in Scripture. First, by Jesus when he tells the Apostles, “He who hears you hears me” (Luke 10:16) and “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” (Matthew 18:18). Before Jesus ascended into heaven he told the Apostles to teach “everything I have commanded,” promised that he would “be with you always” and that the Holy Spirit would guide the Church “into all truth” (Matthew 28:18–20; John 16:13). He also promised that the Church would never fall away from his teachings (Matthew 16:18). Paul's letter to Timothy, written in approximately 63–64 A.D., identifies the Church as the “pillar and bulwark of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15).

The teaching of infallibility was a doctrine clearly understood by Church leaders in the earliest stages of the Church's development. St. Iraneaus writes in Against Heresies in 150 A.D.: “We have proof, it is not necessary to seek among others the truth which is easily obtained from the Church. For the Apostles, like a rich man in a bank, deposited with her everything which pertains to the truth; and everyone who wishes draws from her the drink of life, all the rest are thieves and robbers. That is why it is surely necessary to avoid them, while cherishing wit the utmost diligence the things pertaining to the Church, and to lay hold of the tradition of truth.”

More recently, the Second Vatican Council devoted a section of the Divine Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium 25) to this topic: “The bishops can proclaim Christ's doctrine infallibly…provided that while maintaining the bond of unity among themselves and with Peter's successor, and while teaching authentically on a matter of faith or morals, they concur in a single viewpoint as the one which must be held conclusively.”

Christ went through the trouble of organizing a Church and then giving his life up for it. It is only logical that he would have provided a means to guarantee its continuation and sound teaching.

Christina Mills writes from Eugene, Oregon.