Ecclesiastically, it's a sound idea: the bishop of Rome is a first-among-equals position, and it's nice to have someone who can cast the tiebreaking vote in any situation; plus, whether it's what Jesus meant or not, the role pays homage to the apostle Peter, who is a fairly laudable guy as far as New Testament folk go. Theologically, it's questionable (as the office does have no explicit Biblical basis), and has been made more so by all the even more non-Biblical infallibility doctrine that's sprung up around the position, leading to a lot of incidents with abused power. Historically, it's been a complete toss-up, varying from pope to pope.
But I get the sense that the general voting here is going toward an evaluation of Papa Ratzinger, in which case I'm going to throw in with the BAD and maybe a side order of EVIL.
My understanding of Papal Infallibility is not that the Pope is always divinely right about everythin, but more a kind of "The judges decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into" kind of a thing. Which isn't that bad.
It's more that he's infallible when discussing certain things, under certain conditions:
"The Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being contained in divine revelation, or at least being intimately connected to divine revelation. It is also taught that the Holy Spirit works in the body of the Church, as sensus fidelium, to ensure that dogmatic teachings proclaimed to be infallible will be received by all Catholics."
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andrewducker) wrote2010-09-16 10:46 am
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Ecclesiastically, it's a sound idea: the bishop of Rome is a first-among-equals position, and it's nice to have someone who can cast the tiebreaking vote in any situation; plus, whether it's what Jesus meant or not, the role pays homage to the apostle Peter, who is a fairly laudable guy as far as New Testament folk go. Theologically, it's questionable (as the office does have no explicit Biblical basis), and has been made more so by all the even more non-Biblical infallibility doctrine that's sprung up around the position, leading to a lot of incidents with abused power. Historically, it's been a complete toss-up, varying from pope to pope.
But I get the sense that the general voting here is going toward an evaluation of Papa Ratzinger, in which case I'm going to throw in with the BAD and maybe a side order of EVIL.
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"The Pope is preserved from even the possibility of error when he solemnly declares or promulgates to the universal Church a dogmatic teaching on faith or morals as being contained in divine revelation, or at least being intimately connected to divine revelation. It is also taught that the Holy Spirit works in the body of the Church, as sensus fidelium, to ensure that dogmatic teachings proclaimed to be infallible will be received by all Catholics."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility