Pope Taught Error?

[dairygirl4u2c]

below is a sort of error taught by the pope. it's an interesting read, compelling sort of even to the CC position. but, he did send the books to other bishops, though one might argue it wasn't "official". what do you think? did he teach the error? why why not for those who think so.

[quote]
objection:
[quote]"What about when Pope Sixtus V issued a botched revision of the Latin Vulgate Bible. This edition was so filled with errors, omissions and deformities of the text, that it was hastily recalled after his death by embarrassed Roman cardinals. But the damage was done. Sixtus V had formally taught that the defective edition was to be the only Bible used for the entire Church. If that isn’t a perfect example of a pope fulfilling all the necessary ingredients for teaching ‘infallibly’, nothing else in papal history is. The pope clearly taught error." (Madrid, p. 242, Pope Fiction)[/quote]

Sixtus V reigned as pope from 1585-1590. He has been described as a "brilliant leader in political and ecclesiastical arenas, a tireless innovator in agriculture, engineering and law, he effectively enacted and enforced laws, created an impressive aqueduct system, reformed clergy and the Church’s liturgical customs, tackled building projects, drained the swamps near Rome to eliminate the siege of malaria, spent large amounts of money on charitable works and missions, and oversaw the completion of the St. Peter’s Basilica." Unfortunately he had an ego to match and this got him into serious trouble when a revision of the Latin Vulgate edition of the holy Bible was begun. "Historian Francis Gasquet explains the background of the Vulgate: ‘The Latin text of the Sacred Scriptures had existed from the earliest times of Christianity.’ The translators were unknown to St. Augustine and St. Jerome; but the former says that the old Latin version had certainly come ‘from the first days of the Faith’, and the latter that it ‘ had helped strengthen the Faith of the infant Church.’ Made and copied without any official supervision these western texts soon became corrupt or doubtful."

Since the Church was much threatened by Protestant doctrines that were fast appearing throughout much of Europe and since there were numerous editions of the Vulgate in circulation, Pope Sixtus recognized that the Church required best biblical translation possible to meet Protestant arguments. He acted forthrightly in assembling a team of scholars and linguists, headed by eminent theologians like Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and others. They compiled as many Greek manuscripts as could be assembled and finished the revision process by the end of 1588. But apparently overcome by pride, the pope found the ten thousand readings they had diligently chosen inadequate, and angrily announced he would personally revise the Vulgate. He declared, ‘We, weighing the importance of the matter, and considering carefully the great and singular privilege we hold of God, and our true and legitimate succession from Blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles . . . Are the proper and specially constituted Person to decide this whole question."

Ill equipped for the task, Sixtus eliminated all the work done by the former commission, and started fresh. Unfortunately his abilities to translate, edit and make all the appropriate decisions were beyond his capabilities and the result was an error filled translation presented to the cardinals in early 1590.

Cardinal Bellarmine and Fr. Toledo, another Jesuit scholar revealed their fears "…that by such mutilation he [Sixtus] was laying himself open to the attacks of the heretics, and was giving more serious scandal to the faithful than anything else the pope could do . . . " If Sixtus had formally promulgated this distorted version, it would have allowed a strong case to be argued against the doctrine of papal infallibility since the Pope would have fulfilled the three requirements layed out by Vatican I for an infallible teaching. But the weight of opposition was sufficient, thanks to Bellarmine and others, to stope the Pope from releasing it. Still, he worked on correction of typographical errors with the apparent intention of releasing a corrected version soon. Patrick Madrid writes, "Expectation was at a boiling point. The news in Rome had it that the official promulgation would happen any day. Advance copies of the new Vulgate had been bound and delivered to all the cardinals in Rome along with advance copies of the bull officially publishing it. Everything was ready for the pope to promulgate the new version. Nothing could stop him." But at the last moment Sixtus, whose health and vigor were never questioned, took to his bed, dying on August 27, 1590 after a brief illness. The Holy Spirit's promise to guide the Church to all truth seems to have been fulfilled again. "Only God knows if Sixtus’ sudden death was dramatic proof of divine intervention-- the evidence that papal infallibility isn’t just a Catholic idea, but that God Himself will prevent, by death if necessary, the pope from teaching an error formally to the Church." (Madrid, pps. 242-51, Pope Fiction).[/quote]

[mortify]

Guessing it wasn't a solemnly defined pronouncement. There is a level of the teaching Magesterium that is non-infallible, it requires the assent of the faithful unless of course it's in error.

[dairygirl4u2c]

can you clarify that.
i consider myself pretty versed in papal infallibility but i'm not sure what you're getting at.

[mortify]

From my understanding there are three Magesteriums and one of them is non-infallible. An example of this is when a Pope expresses his opinion in an encyclical but does not solemnly define it as dogma, thus it is not an infallible statement even though it still falls under the teaching authority (Magesterium) of the Pope. Obviously this non-infallible opinion is subject to error though we give the Pontiff the benefit of the doubt, I presume this is where Pope Sixtus V's statement concerning the promulgation of the vulgate falls.

[Budge]

[quote]there are three Magesteriums and one of them is non-infallible.[/quote]

You have to have an out so you dont paint yourself into a corner.

[Guest 基督耶蘇]

May I ask why there are three magesteriums and what they are? I mean what difference jobs do they do?

I tried googling it but turned up a bunch of stuff about alchemy for some reason.

[mortify]

[quote name='基督耶蘇' post='1267643' date='May 7 2007, 09:36 PM']May I ask why there are three magesteriums and what they are? I mean what difference jobs do they do?

I tried googling it but turned up a bunch of stuff about alchemy for some reason.[/quote]

Apotheon has an article about the Church's magesterium on his site, you can take a look here:

[url="http://www.geocities.com/apotheoun/magisterium"]http://www.geocities.com/apotheoun/magisterium[/url]

[Aloysius]

mortify, did you read the whole thing through?

again, the man himself is fallible... and as a fallible man he got ready, setting everything up, to BIND the Church into believing error (I'm not quite sure what the bull promulgating the text was set to say, but I'm assuming if it's that compelling of a case, the Bull was actually going to teach that this particular Bible translation was free from doctrinal and translation error)... he was unable to bind the Church in error.

that's all we've ever said: popes are unable to bind the Church in error. If they succeed in binding the Church in a doctrine, then we can trust that doctrine to be "infallible". whether the man himself is a raving lunatic is beyond the issue; a raving lunatic would be unable to use the Papacy to bind the Church in error.

Although I am not quite sure what the Bull itself was going to teach, that much is unclear from this quote. Also, as regards the scope of the pope's teaching office, he doesn't so much have the expertise to teach that the translation was an exactly correct translation, unless he made it a matter of faith in his bull something like that the translation was what perfectly conveyed what was intended by the sacred authors. he could have taught that it is without doctrinal error, and even if the translation was not totally faithful to the original at times, it very well could have still be without doctrinal error.

If he tried to bind the Church as a matter of faith that this translation was a totally correct translation, he would have been rendered unable to do so by the Power of the Holy Ghost.

I have never seen the translation, but if the translation itself had doctrinal errors, and he had tried to bind the Church as a matter of faith that it did not have doctrinal errors, he would have been rendered unable to do so by the Power of the Holy Ghost.

Judging from the implications of the article, it seems one or both of the above was true.

So it seems to me that the Holy Ghost worked here through the means of mortality, and through the human means of the other cardinals, to keep the Church from being bound in error.

It's not just a simple matter of "did he teach it privately or from his teaching office" most of the time, it's a matter of "did he bind the whole church in this or that"

Thinking about the Vulgate itself, Catholics take it as an infallible teaching that it is free from doctrinal errors, not that it is necessarily a perfect copy/translation of what the original texts signify; and that it itself can be treated as the inspired text by virtue of its doctrinally correct conveying of the intentions of the Sacred Authors. That teaching comes from Trent, and refers to the version of the text promulgated by the Trent.

[mortify]

Aloysius,

I may be mistaken but my understanding is that a Pope can promulgate a non infallible doctrine universally, I mean isn't that what he does when he issues an encyclical? For something to be infallible it has to be explicitly defined as such, usually with a phrase like, "We solemnly define and proclaim..."

[dairygirl4u2c]

i think he's saying that he can, but that's not hte case here, and it shouldn't be assumed to be the case often.

i never heard of a non-infallible magisterium. i've heard of the generl teaching thing like the encyclicals and such of which you speak but not that. even the ordinary magisterium is suppose to be infallible, though who knows when it's doing anything binding. (for a cynic, that's how the random things are pulled from the hat and catholics end up believing different things as time progresses, and they they say it was never really taught)

Edited May 8, 2007 by dairygirl4u2c

[Aloysius]

He cannot bind the Church into believing error. Which is what the point of this example is

He could make mistakes as regards the way things are run, liturgical practices, liturgical law, canon law, temporal decisions and punishments et cetera.

But he could not bind the whole Church to believe error by the power of the papacy. I find that it is a lot simpler to hold that line, and it is a true line to hold, than to try and differentiate if he said "we declare, define, et cetera" or whatever; it is not about magic words. it is absolutely true and follows right out of all the doctrinal teaching on the subject of Papal infallibility to say "the Pope is incapable of binding the whole church to believe doctrinal error", that's what all infallibility is all about. that's what the understanding basically was in the ancient Church when they said "Roma Locuta Est, Causa Finita Est" and in the Medieval Church, and it's what Vaticans I and II were basing everything off, that very simple principal.

He may teach different degrees of error, potentially, but not from the office; not binding. and what is described here would be a clear binding of the Church from his office. John Paul II's Theology of the Body has neither infallibility nor binding power, for instance... it was a set of talks at private audiences that were published for the edification of the faithful but did not bind anyone to believe in them.

[goldenchild17]

I believe if this encyclical had been officially promulgated then there certainly could be a case made against the protection given to the Church by the Holy Spirit. The fact is that it wasn't promulgated, and he died before the damage could officially be done. A number of popes have made potentially disastrous mistakes (I believe some other examples of this are also described by Madrid in Pope Fiction), but through one means or another all of these popes have been protected from error. This pope, by his death. And that's how it will always be. No true pope can or will ever officially promulgate error.

[mortify]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1267758' date='May 7 2007, 11:04 PM']i never heard of a non-infallible magisterium.[/quote]


[i]Therein lies your problem.[/i]

I hope Apotheon wont mind me quoting his article, but in reference to the Authentic Magesterium he writes:

[quote]The Roman Pontiff and the College of Bishops when exercising their
Authentic Magisterium teach doctrines on matters of faith and morals
and issue disciplinary directives with the authority of Christ. The faithful
are bound to accept these doctrines and norms, and are to adhere to
them faithfully, ensuring that they avoid anything that does not accord
with these authoritative teachings and decisions. [11][b]Although the acts
of the Authentic Magisterium do not possess the charism of infallibility[/b],
its acts are not devoid of divine assistance [12], and therefore all
Christians must give a religious submission of intellect and will to its
teachings, [b]even though they are not per se irreformable[/b].[/quote]

Now contrast this with the other Magesteriums (Extraordinary, Ordinary and Universal) explained on his site:

Taken from: [url="http://www.geocities.com/apotheoun/magisterium"]http://www.geocities.com/apotheoun/magisterium[/url]
#3 under Authentic Magesterium

[quote]I consider myself pretty versed in papal infallibility[/quote]
Apparently you aren't so well versed in papal infallibility after all.

Edited May 8, 2007 by mortify

[Aloysius]

yep. dairygirl, you'd do well to read some of Apotheoun's explanations of infallibility, they're some of the best and most comprehensible and comprehensive ones out there.

but as regards this particular instance, it seems like the pope here was going to bind the whole Church into a belief by his papacy, and it would've been a legitimate case where he should not have been able to promote error according to the guidance of the Church by the Holy Ghost. And, he didn't. Great: score one for the good guys. the pope died before binding the Church to believe in his erroneous translation. Though again, I'm not sure what the actual bull taught about the translation he was sending out, nor whether the translation actually contained doctrinal errors, so I'm not sure whether this was actually a case of a pope being stopped from promoting error by an Act of God through mortality, or what. It very well could've been a bad translation which had no doctrinal errors which the pope could have taught correctly had no doctrinal errors... I don't know without fuller research; but as it stands, it'd be a non-issue if that were the case, cause he didn't get to publish it (which makes me think it likely that it did have doctrinal errors but he was planning to bind the Church into believing that it didn't)

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='基督耶蘇' post='1267643' date='May 7 2007, 09:36 PM']May I ask why there are three magesteriums and what they are? I mean what difference jobs do they do?

I tried googling it but turned up a bunch of stuff about alchemy for some reason.[/quote]
The link that was given in response to this already is good, but I want to specify...there is one Magisterium, but it operates in different capacities.