A Critique of Some of the False Teachings of the Catholic Church: #2 The Infallibility of the Catholic Church

#2 The Infallibility of the Catholic Church

A New Modern Twist to Gain Influence

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pope Pius IX (1846–1878), during whose pontificate the doctrine of papal infallibility was dogmatically defined by the First Vatican Council.

Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church that states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error^[1] “When, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church.”^[2]

Loraine Boettner in his book: Roman Catholicism writes:

. . . the Roman Church, having no sure Scriptural anchorage concerning the problem of authority [the infallibility of the Pope], drifted about for centuries before solving this problem. As we have indicated, some of the strongest opposition to the infallibility decree came from within the Roman Church. The leading German theologian, Dollinger, who had been a teacher of theology for 47 years, strenuously opposed the decree, and insisted that the three leading criteria in all such controversies – universality, antiquity, and consent – were clearly lacking. He could not be induced to change his mind, and was excommunicated on April 17, 1871. Pg. 246

No longer can a church council or a theologian appeal to the Scriptures as against the pope. [The Apostle] Paul says: “The word of God is not bound” (2 Timothy 2:9). But by this decree the Word of God is frozen and chained down by a well-nigh unbreakable chain. Pg. 247

In 1870 Lord Acton, a devout Catholic, opposed the moves to declare the doctrine of papal infallibility in the First Vatican Council, travelling to Rome to lobby against it, ultimately unsuccessfully.^[11] In a letter he wrote to scholar and ecclesiastic Mandell Creighton, dated April 1887, Acton made his most famous pronouncement:

I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way, against the holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you super-add the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.

If this “infallibility” is a corruption as we will show, then when and why did it occur?

Necessity, the Mother of Invention

Dave Hunt in his book A Woman Rides the Beast:

By the time of Pope Pius IX (1846 – 1878), the tide of public opinion was turning against the popes because of their ruthless totalitarianism. The revolutionary ideas of freedom of the press, of religion, of conscience, of the people’s right to choose their rulers, and of the separation of church and state, having been established by the United States Constitution, were also gaining momentum across Europe. This new breath of freedom threatened Rome and had to be smothered in Christ’s name. Pius IX was determined to continue Rome’s autocratic rule in partnership with autocratic governments. To protect Rome’s dictatorial powers, papal infallibility had to be established as an official and universally held doctrine.

In 1864 Pius IX condemned what he called –

That erroneous opinion most pernicious to the Catholic Church, and to the salvation of souls, which was called by our Predecessor, Gregory XIV, the insanity (deliramentum): namely, “that the liberty of conscience and of worship is the peculiar (or inalienable) right of every man, which should be proclaimed by law, and that citizens have the right to . . . openly and publicly express their ideas, by word of mouth, through the press, or by any other means.”

The obvious question should be, how does this statement square with the oft spoken arguments from the Vatican, that Rome is and always has been a champion of human rights and freedom? Pope John Paul II, on a pastoral visit to the United States in 1987 seems to be in favor of these freedoms when he says, “I come to proclaim . . . the message of human dignity, with its inalienable human rights . . . [as] a pilgrim in the cause of justice and peace . . . seeking the deep meaning of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This all sounds so sincere. John Paul in this statement contradicts the steady stream of papal voices and dogmas to the contrary which are still heard today. Can a leopard change its spots? Are we to believe all the conflicting voices of infallible popes? Or, are we to see in their contradictions the duplicity of scheming men trying desperately to contain and hold the reins of power.

THE CROSS OF PAPAL INFALLIBILITY

The Church no longer had at its disposal the option of physical coercion that ranged from detention to annihilation, which was not infrequently used by the pope. For example, in “1868 Pius IX ordered the Italian revolutionaries, Monti and Tognetti beheaded in the Piazza del Popolo for attempting to blow up a papal barracks. And just two weeks before Rome was taken by storm, a certain Paolo Muzi was hanged in Frosinone, the last citizen of the Papal States to be executed.”114 This hanging took place just 6 weeks after papal infallibility became a dogma. With great disappointment, the pope knew the power he derived from the threat of annihilation was rapidly coming to an end.

Professor Vaillancourt … states, “…it has become increasingly difficult to enforce unpopular decisions through coercion and exclusion. Consequently, the Vatican must now try to exercise its control over Catholics through normative and manipulative means (e.g., through socialization and co-optation) rather than through coercive and repressive power….The declaration of papal infallibility…was an important milestone in that direction. The stress on the absolute authority of the pope in questions of faith and morals helped turn the Church into a unified and powerful bureaucratic organization, and paved the way for the establishment of the Papacy-laity relationship as we know it today.”

In his encyclical Quanta Cura (1864), Pius IX had listed eighty contemporary errors and condemned them. This is referred to as the Syllabus of Errors. In it he condemned many of the freedoms Americans hold dearest: freedoms of conscience, speech, the press, and religion. He rightfully recognized that American style democracy gravely threatened the Papacy. (If Americans are permitted to exercise these rights, American democracy may yet bring about the extinction of the Papacy.) The Syllabus was the definitive challenge to the modern state.116

The Jesuits and the doctrine of infallibility

The invention of the dogma of the infallibility of the pope cannot be understood completely apart from the role of the Jesuits or an understanding of their purpose as related to the pope and power. The society was created in 1534 by Ignatius Loyola as a response to counter the Protestant Reformation. Clearly they have earned a reputation as those given to intrigue, equivocation, and casuistry in the worst sense of these words. Being the military and intelligence wing of the Catholic Church they never found it expedient to continue many of the practices placed on the rest of the medieval religion. Today the term “Jesuit” is used to describe someone who has no moral scruples and will resort to any means to accomplish their goals while displaying an appearance of holiness. This definition is accurate and has a well recorded history to back its claim. This is not just the verdict of non-Catholics. Under pressure from France, Spain, and Portugal, Pope Clement XIV, in 1773 was forced to abolish the sect, but it was then reinstated by Pius VII in 1814.

Originally when the Jesuits were established by Loyola it was their perceived charter to teach and preach the gospel showing clearly that there was no conflict between faith and reason as the Bible declares there is. This left the door open for creative change and innovation within their theology. When modernity swept past their teachings and actions, in the late 20th century, they completely incorporated modernism into their philosophy. For example, their involvement with revolution theology in South America, the writings of Jesuits Teilhard de Chardin, George Tyrell, and Malachi Martin, all demonstrate that the Jesuits do adapt and morph to times and situations, as conditions demand. The Jesuits believe today that things like papal infallibility, original sin, homosexuality, the sacraments, the meaning of redemption and salvation and many other traditional teachings as taught by the Church for two millenniums are no longer valid and that these things should be reconsidered in light of modern life and needs. All is relative, after all they are Jesuits! Up to now, the Jesuits would have defended those fundamental Catholic teachings and the Pope. Bear in mind that the present Pope Francis is a Jesuit; expect no less from him. So, for a Jesuit to be elected pope immediately after two highly conservative papacies that were demonstrably cold to Jesuit social activism is nothing short of monumental. In the 1970s and ’80s, Latin America was roiling in Cold War political intrigue. The CIA was in the thick of it on the military juntas’ side, and on the other side and behind the scene, were the Jesuits.

Tod Robberson / Editorial Writer for The Dallas Morning News

Published: March 14, 2013 11:33 am

The significance of Pope Francis, Jesuit

http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2013/03/the-significance-of-pope-francis-jesuit.html/

Pope Francis probably will never have to answer fully for his alleged cooperation with the military junta in Argentina in the 1970s. As Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio, he was accused of assisting in the kidnap and subsequent torture of two fellow Jesuit priests. Bergolio denied the allegation — made by one of the kidnapped priests — and said he worked behind the scenes to obtain the priests’ release from captivity. Bergolio’s human rights work focused on the defense of the poor but leaned more heavily on campaigning against abortion and same-sex marriage than on defending the politically oppressed. It’s quite a mixed bag that should leave a lot of people unsettled.

The Church was under siege from many different forces: secularization, liberalism, rationalism and naturalism. A principle of ultimate authority was needed. The successful passing of the dogma at the Vatican Council is attributed primarily to the Jesuits as an attempt to forestall the advance of personal freedoms in the world. This order was mainly limited to the idea of the infallibility of the Pope, but they secured, “by a brief,” says John McDonald, Scottish Reformed Pastor, in his article Romanism Analyzed, “dated October, 1836, that the Pope [then Gregory XVI] virtually reconciling himself and the Church to Jesuit control; so, because it was easier for them to manage one than a multitude of individual bishops, it was their purpose to have infallibility located in one man, that man being the Pope.”

Dave Hunt in his book A Woman Rides the Beast says:

Those in favor of infallibility when the Council began were a small minority. Nevertheless, they had a concrete plan of action for taking control of the key positions in the Council bureaucracy and the Church’s news media. In this they were aided by “the Pope, most of the Curia and the Jesuits.” To gain votes, this pressure group “did not flinch from intrigues, promises, and threats.” . . . The English chargé d’affaires’ to the Holy See commented that preparations to push through infallibility had been so well organized that –

. . . foreign bishops find it quite impossible to express their own opinions freely. They will be unpleasantly surprised to find themselves forced to sanction something which they actually wished to condemn.

“The whole business amounted to a clear manipulation of the Council” wrote the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity August Bernhard Hasler. Hasler met an untimely death just after his manuscript, How the Pope Became Infallible, was finished.

What Catholics Believe

I have good friends who are Catholic and this exposé is no reflection on them personally. We have all sincerely believed things at one time or another, or may still believe things, which are pure deceit, and our reasons for believing are ours alone to answer for. As we have discovered here the Catholic Church and its popes are in no way exempt from the sins that plague the rest of humankind. Many were in opposition to the affirming of papal infallibility, but the forces that exist, whether human or demonic, demand that forceful men with deceit and intrigue wrench the reins of power from the Almighty, for their own purposes. Those who reject the proofs and choose to remain within the Roman Church will do so, not because the truth has been hidden, but rather because darkness demands no action and no repentance. It is their right to believe that “papal infallibility was passed down from Peter” rather than the truth that “It was foisted upon the Church by ruthless cadre of the Vatican insiders who conspired to stifle discussion, rig elections, and literally intimidate bishops into voting, out of fear, for a proposition which they opposed.”

The very repentance called for by the Church to the laity for its many wanderings is nowhere to be found among those who have been the cause of more pain and suffering than all of the laity lumped together. The call to believe the teachings of the Catholic Church is a deadly delusion which is taught in their catechisms, learned from childhood, and propagated in the belief that the Church, and the pope in particular, is the dispenser of grace and merits.

The dogma of the infallibility of the pope is a fraud, invented to prop up the collapsing Roman Catholic Church over men and governments around the world. The instrument used was the First Vatican Council on December 8, 1869, controlled and manipulated by evil men.

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