An Infallible Pope?
In a remarkable move, 62 traditionalist Roman Catholic scholars have issued a formal correction to the Pope on account of what they describe as the heresies contained in his publication of March 2016, Amoris Laetitia, (Latin for the joy of love) which seemed to present a more ambiguous stance on whether divorced or remarried people could partake of the mass. They claim that, by his “words, deeds and omissions”, in connection with this issue, the Pope has brought grave danger to the Roman Church. They go so far as to assert that Amoris Laetitia contains “seven heretical propositions”. They also accuse the Pope of modernism and of giving too much place to the “arch-heretic” Martin Luther in the doctrines of justification and marriage.
This is a further challenge to the current Pontiff’s authority and it remains to be seen what response there will be and what the ultimate consequences will be. None of the cardinals who last year issued a “dubia”, a letter seeking clarification of the Pope’s statement, have signed this latest document. Only one bishop has signed it. The authors of the correction are at pains to stress that their document is not a threat to the doctrine of papal infallibility, as that doctrine “is defined by the Church”. They assert that the Pope’s pronouncement on marriage does not come under the definition of infallibility, as it contradicts the traditional doctrine that the papacy is entrusted to maintain.
7See particularly the prayers at the end of each lecture in Calvin’s exposition of the Minor Prophets.
8The ESV is a relatively minor revision of the Revised Standard Version (RSV). The publishers acknowledge the ESV to be 91% the RSV. When the RSV was published, it was severely criticised by Oswald Allis of “old Princeton” for its liberal content. See Allis’ two penetrating critiques, Revision or New Translation, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1948 and Revised Version or Revised Bible, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1953.
Thus we are left with the absurd situation of having a pope contradicted by those who claim to believe in papal infallibility. Was he or was he not speaking infallibly when he issued his statement Amoris Laetitia? If not, he was fallible when he made that pronouncement, and the doctrine of papal infallibility is seen to be another of Rome’s lies, however many caveats and qualifications Romanists may seek to bring forth to justify their errors. AWM