Fred Martinez over at Catholic Monitor has really been nailing it lately HERE.
He draws some high quality commentary, too.
This one today is priceless. I hope he doesn’t mind me posting it.
Jack said…
People who imagine that Vatican I’s definition of papal infallibility is circular, tautological, or otherwise redundant imagine that the dogma goes like this: “Solemn papal definitions are infallible, because the pope has the power of infallibility.” Which is like saying, “it’s right because the pope says it’s right.”
This would be to set up the pope as a kind of god, since only God is truly self-justifying like this, right simply because He is right, because He is Truth itself by His very essence.
I think in the wake of liberalism and its undermining of all authority, Catholics rallied to the pope and after Vatican I made this kind of mistake, at least implicitly, that the pope is right because he is right. But this is just another human error, setting up a man in God’s place, undermining authority in an even more subtle way.
The pope is not right because he says he’s right, and he’s not infallible simply because he has the power of infallibility (although he is and he does). Vatican I is very clear. The pope is infallible BECAUSE Christ gave the keys to Peter and his Successors, and HE guaranteed by HIS divine power that the pope would never err in his solemn teaching capacity. This is perhaps a subtle distinction, but it makes a profound difference. It means that our faith is not centred on the person of the pope, but centred on Christ just has it has always been.
So when we come across a pope who appears to be erring in doctrine, the first thing we should ask is whether he is really erring or not. And if he is erring, the next thing to ask is whether his papacy is legitimate or whether he’s an antipope. But for people with a worldly mindset who are too willing to accept the world’s opinions and maintain their public image, and who’s faith is more centred on the person of the pope than on the person of Christ, they would rather deny Vatican I and become heretics than accuse a possible antipope (despite there having been many, many antipopes in history) and fall temporarily out of favour.
To be honest at this point I would not be surprised if Skojec is a kind of double agent and 1p5 a false-opposition operation designed to keep potential critics of the regime confused and pigeonholed. Keep traditionalists as a whining bunch of scandalmongerers rather than united in any useful purpose.
Jack’s comment would have been equally relevant with regard to another post which appeared today, which I mirror here for the sake of this combox:
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The Dr. Pepper Tautology – How “Francis is Pope” Inevitably Leads to Heresy, Schism, and Apostasy
The current argument which you can see on a near-daily basis from most “Trad Catholic” sites, bloggers, pundits, whatever is this:
Papal Infallibility only applies to those magisterial statements which are true. Those statements are infallible, and are manifestations of the Petrine Protection. All magisterial statements that are false are not infallible, and do not fall under the Petrine Protection, and thus in no way violate the Dogma of Papal Infallibility.
Now think about this, folks – and here is where the culture-wide inability to think in a logical progression rears its ugly head yet again.
Everything Bergoglio says that is true is infallible.
Stop. Think about that.
Everything ANYONE says that is true is infallible. The truth IS infallible. It’s a completely circular argument. And thus, by logical extension, anything that is false is not infallible.
This argument, which actually says nothing at all, applies to every man, woman, child and angelic being that ever has and ever will exist. Everything satan has ever said that was true was infallible. Everything Hitler ever said that was true was infallible. Everything Hillary Clinton has ever said that was true (and that set is SMALL) is infallible. Thus, what we have here is a TAUTOLOGY, which is a statement that is true by virtue of its logical form.
The set of “truth” is infallible, because infallibility is freedom from error, which the truth, by definition ALWAYS IS. The root of the word “infallible” is the Latin fallere, which means “to deceive”. The truth cannot be both true and false.
And so, once again, we see the wrong-headed defense of Antipope Bergoglio qua Pope accomplishing EXACTLY what satan wants, which is completely destroying the entire notion of the papacy itself.
If Our Lord’s promise to Peter was nothing more than an empty rhetorical trick, a TAUTOLOGY, and the Petrine Protection is actually a UNIVERSALLY APPLICABLE AXIOM, then no real promise was ever made, and the Papacy has been a joke all along – which is EXACTLY what the various SCHISMATICS; Lutherans, Anglicans, all Protestants and the Orthodox, have all been saying all along. And satan squeeeeeeals with delight.
The truth is, Papal infallibility is real, it is a supernatural promise and gift, absolutely intrinsic to the Papacy, proceeding necessarily out of Our Lord’s infinite love for His Holy Church, and for us as individuals, and the fact that Antipope Bergoglio so very clearly does NOT enjoy that supernatural protection, is just one more clear, obvious “red flag” sign that somehow his “election” was invalid. With even the most superficial examination of events, it is perfectly clear to any who care to look with open, honest eyes that Pope Benedict XVI’s attempted partial resignation was Canonically invalid twelve ways from Sunday, and that Pope Benedict never validly resigned and has been the one and only Pope all along per
Canons 188,
332.2,
131,
359, etc. etc. Like I said, twelve ways from Sunday.
The fact that Antipope Bergoglio is so flagrantly outside of the domain of the true definition of Papal Infallibility – which is real, as history AND the words of Our Lord in the Gospels attest – is a blinking neon sign of a red flag pointing BACK to the events of February ARSH 2013 and the faux-abdication, and thus total invalidity and nullity of the conclave of March ARSH 2013.
If your position always leads to the tearing down of the Papacy, and matches up EXACTLY with the founding objective of Freemasonry to destroy the Papacy, which has been satan’s goal since day one, then dontcha think that MAYBE your base premise – namely the IDENTITY of the Pope – is WRONG?
So, now that Trad, Inc. has pretty much fully embraced the Freemasonic agenda to discredit and destroy the Papacy in their own minds and the minds of the faithful, the next step, which one can see coming like a freight train across the Western Kansas plains, will be to start going after SCRIPTURE ITSELF, declaring certain passages and eventually entire books of the Bible to be wrong, useless, and to be ignored or disregarded. Mark my words. The Luther-esque Bible editing will commence in 3..2..1…
I covered this in my Part 1 video presentation on the Bergoglian Antipapacy at the 01:57:07 timestamp, to which the embed below is cued, if you prefer video.
Pray for Pope Benedict XVI, the Papacy, and Holy Mother Church.
Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh_CIoVvaOk?start=7027&feature=oembed]
I’m infallible
He’s infallible
She’s infallible
We’re infallible
Wouldn’t you like to be infallible, too?
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvCTaccEkMI?feature=oembed]