April 17, 2003

I, a Catholic, was particularly saddened by Pope John Paul II's willingness to proclaim that Saddam Hussein's Baathist dictatorship ought not to be deposed. Surely the Pontiff, Karol Wojtyla of Poland, who devoted many years of his life to opposing the brutal Communist dictatorship over his homeland, ought to have known better. But I reminded myself of a few things:

1. The Pope is a human being, and as capable of mistakes as any man who's ever lived.

2. The Pope was not speaking on a theological matter, and therefore Catholics had no obligation to treat his opinion as anything more than an interesting news item.

3. The Pope is very, very old, and it's therefore possible that he's not sufficiently clear of mind to understand the consequences of his words or deeds any more.

Now, before any hard-core anti-Catholics leap to the rostrum and start ranting about "papal infallibility," I think I'll pre-empt the subject. "Papal infallibility," one of the most poorly chosen phrases in the history of theology, does not mean the Pope cannot be wrong. It doesn't even mean that he cannot be wrong on matters of core theological doctrine, another plausible-but-wrong interpretation I've heard advanced. "Papal infallibility" is a guarantee of spiritual protection for Catholics; it states that, as the Pope is the Vicar of Christ on Earth, Catholics who follow the Pope's guidance on religious matters are spiritually indemnified against the consequences. That is, you won't go to Hell for accepting the Pope's statements on theological matters as accurate Catholic doctrine.

Obviously, there are limits. If the Pope were to get up one morning and say that the Ten Commandments are no longer binding, so you can kill, steal and covet as much as you like, those who accepted his statement and acted on it would imperil their immortal souls. But that's an absurd case, thinkable only in the realms of fantasy.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled, secular programming.

Francis:

I agree papal infallibility was a poorly chosen name.

I'm not sure your completely correct here: I worked for the Catholic Church for two years and went to a Catholic undergrad, and I never heard anyone describe papal infallibility as spiritual insurance for Catholics.

I heard that Papal Infallibility was more like a certificate or seal of approval that the Pope used to declare certain of his statements on faith and morals to be infallible. From my understanding, Popes have only declared two subsequent statements to be infallible:

One, creating a neat tautology, is the infallibility doctrine itself. Two, the assumption of Mary. That's it. (A friend of mine jokes that those are the only two things the RCC is certain of.)

In both cases, the Pope was teaching from authority on faith and morals AND declared that specific teaching infallible. Both those requirements must be met before papal infallibility can be declared.

Humanae vitae, Paul 6's controversial teaching on birth control, was not declared infallible ... and PJP2 was under pressure in some quarters to declare that humanae vitae is infallible. He has not done so.

By the way, the Eastern Orthodox churches also have an infallibility doctrine ... which is that the Holy Spirit protects their churches from theological error. They don't get as much publicity for that doctrine, perhaps because they've had the doctrine the whole time.

Anglo-Catholics like myself don't have an infallibility doctrine that I know of.

Oh yes, collateral damage prize.

Canada's reputation. They've proven themselves capable of electing a government that will act against their own national interest in order to make anti-American points. It's been a bit of an eye-opener.

Unfortunately everyone on your list of award candidates will probably follow the lead of one of their fellows: Bill Clinton proved a few years ago that all a public villain needs to do is act as if it never happened. The public may not forgive infamy, but it certainly forgets it quickly enough.

the retired general on CNN was also OK.

First of all,
'papal infallibility' means that when issuing a dogmatic statement (i.e., something Catholics must believe) the Pope cannot teach error.
Second, the Pope's opposition to the war was (and is) based upon the Catholic Church's "Just War Theory", a fairly complex and detailed moral and ethical concept of when war is and is not justified within Christian parameters.

There seems to be a fairly common concept amongst war supporters that vistory proves morality. Far from it. Winning proves military superiority, not moral worth.

Also, the generals I saw never seemed to imply that the US *could* lose, let alone that they *would*. They simply complained that they felt the war plan in use put too many US lives at risk, lives that did not need to be risked. Generals tend to fret about things like unneeded US casualties, especially when the use of more assets can reduce that threat. Or as one strategist put it 'rather too many tanks than a few more dead infantry'. And the triumphalism from the media that 'modern air power means you don't need to protect your flanks' are loony - we have no proof of that from this conflict. On the other hand, we do have proof that the heretofore untested shock and awe concept is a battlefield failure.

And just so that I don't sound like another armchair expert, I am a Catholic theologian who was a U.S. Army intelligence analyst in the first Gulf War. And I was tactical, not strategic.