Fr. Richard McBrien on Fridays - More on Papal Infallibility, It Ain't What You Think It Is

 I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible.   St. John XXIII

My mother didn't say it as such but I know she wanted to see two things before she died, a good, liberal woman as president of the United States and women ordained as priests in the Roman Catholic Church.   She wouldn't have wanted any conservative to be president, no matter what gender or other symbol of equality moving forward.  She, as I, never voted for a Republican in a partisan race.  As it is she had to settle for seeing women ordained in churches with officially recognized valid apostolic succession, the Episcopalians, etc. and to see Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.   She loved Nancy Pelosi, as do I.

Here is another of his articles which you think would have gotten Fr. Richard McBrien in hot water of the type he mentions in it because he pointed out that, even though a pope claimed John Paul II's statements against the possibility of women being ordained was an infallible teaching, it didn't meet the official qualifications defining an infallible teaching according to the church's official Cannon Law and so it couldn't be an infallible teaching.   Apparently Fr. McBrien knew more about church law than the pope, which is probably why no one in the Vatican was willing to take him on.   It is possible to be "more Catholic than the Pope",  or at least know what you're talking about more than one.

Infallibility in Question

One of the most perplexing aspects of the sacking of William Morris, bishop of the Australian diocese of Toowoomba, Queensland, is Pope Benedict XVI’s claim that the Catholic Church’s prohibition of the ordination of women to the priesthood is the product of an infallible teaching. 

In 2006 Bishop Morris issued a pastoral letter before the beginning of Advent in which he called attention to the alarming decrease in the number of active priests who will continue to serve the needs of the diocese by Easter 2014. 

He urged that alternative strategies be considered if the Eucharist is to remain available to the Catholics of the diocese. These alternative strategies include: ordaining married, single, or widowed men who are chosen and endorsed by the local parish community; welcoming former priests, married or single, back to active ministry; ordaining women, married or single; and recognizing Anglican, Lutheran, and Uniting Church Orders.

Bishop Morris did not advocate any of these alternatives, but argued only that the Church be “more open” to them.

At the same time, Bishop Morris emphasized that he remained “committed to actively promoting vocations to the current celibate male priesthood and open to inviting priests from overseas.”

However, if it were not for the constant drumbeat of criticism on the part of ultraconservative Catholics, most or all of whom have had no formal education in theology, Scripture, liturgy, or canon law, and the appointment of another ultraconservative as Apostolic Visitor, Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Denver, Bishop Morris would not have been removed from his diocese.

The criticism from the far right and their connection with powerful individuals in the Vatican gave the “investigation” all the impetus that it needed, and the selection of Archbishop Chaput as Apostolic Visitor rendered the final result inevitable.

Bishop Morris revealed portions of the letter from Pope Benedict XVI informing him of his removal from office. In that letter, the pope insisted that his predecessor, John Paul II, had defined the teaching on the ordination of women as priests in his 1994 apostolic letter, Ordinatio sacerdotalis. In other words, the teaching was infallible and, as such, irrevocable. 

It could not be considered, as Bishop Morris had suggested in his 2006 Advent pastoral letter, with a view to a possible change in practice. Such a change, Pope Benedict XVI pointed out, had been rendered impossible by John Paul II’s infallible teaching on the subject.

This teaching had also been so described in a 1995 statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), which then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger headed. Cardinal Ratzinger, of course, is now Pope Benedict XVI.

Cardinal Ratzinger noted that the teaching on women’s ordination “has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium,” as well as by the 1998 apostolic letter of Pope John Paul II, Ad Tuendam Fidem (“For the defense of the faith”), accompanied by a commentary written by Cardinal Ratzinger, who said essentially the same thing as he is now saying as pope.

But canon 749.3 stipulates that if there is any doubt about the infallible nature of a teaching, it is not infallible. The canon reads: “No doctrine is understood to be infallibly defined unless it is clearly established as such.”

Therefore, even if then-Cardinal Ratzinger concluded that Pope John Paul II’s teaching on women priests in Ordinatio sacerdotalis was infallible, it could not be considered infallible because it was not “clearly established as such.” 

And even if a pope, such as Benedict XVI, wished to argue that a specific teaching of one of his predecessors was infallible, canon 749.3 would also seem to preclude such an argument.

Moreover, individual Catholic theologians, major Catholic theological organizations in the United States, and the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland have expressed serious doubts about the claim that the Church’s current prohibition of the ordination of women to the priesthood is grounded in an infallible teaching. 


Therefore, if this was the decisive reason for the sacking of Bishop Morris, his removal seems to have been without sufficient warrant. As such it would constitute a grave injustice to him, to the diocese of Toowoomba, and to the Church in Australia.

6/6/2011

Most people, even some popes, aren't aware of just what the meaning of papal infallibility is.   I always thought it was kind of illogical that it took a bunch of late 19th century Cardinals to vote that popes could issue infallible teachings, you'd have thought that was an important enough issue that a pope would have to define it as an issue, after all, the Cardinals didn't declare themselves infallible and they could have been mistaken about that.  And, in line with what Fr. McBrien pointed out, it hardly met its own requirement

"if there is any doubt about the infallible nature of a teaching, it is not infallible"

The fact is there was not only considerable doubt about it, there was open dissent from it and it caused a number of Catholics, laypeople, even Bishops to leave the Catholic church, some formed The Old Catholic Church, and a lot of people who remained in it doubting that popes were able to speak infallibly.   I think it's one of those things which stand a good chance of being set aside, as any close reading of the very, very long history of the Catholic Church, its doctrines and, even more so, dogmas will know. Anyone who pretends that some things that are as basic to the Catholic Church didn't change radically, sometimes completely, is either ignorant or they're dishonest.  

And in the wider culture, most of the snarky stuff about "papal infallibility" is totally a product of even more ignorance as to what the phrase means.