Can a pope make mistakes? What attitude should a Catholic adopt in order to find the truth during the pontificate of a bad pope?

 

Saint of the Day, February 12, 1971

 

By Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

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“A Roman and Apostolic Catholic, the author of this text submits himself with filial devotion to the traditional teaching of Holy Church. However, if by an oversight anything is found in it at variance with that teaching, he immediately and categorically rejects it.”

 The words “Revolution” and “Counter-Revolution” are employed here in the sense given to them by Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in his book Revolution and Counter-Revolution, the first edition of which was published in the monthly Catolicismo, Nº 100, April 1959.

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I have received this question: What should a catholic do to find the truth during the reign of a bad Pope, for example, the Popes of the Renaissance?

I believe it is not too difficult to answer this question in terms of Catholic doctrine and particularly if we have recourse to the studies that Dr. Arnaldo Xavier da Silveira published last year. To summarize a lot, we should note that the source of truth is in Revelation, Tradition, and in the documents of Church Magisterium. These sources of information give us the authentic interpretation of what is found in Revelation and in Tradition.

As you know, the Popes are infallible when they make a pronouncement ex cathedra, in which case their teaching cannot be challenged. It is infallible, and that is the end of it. You also know that the same happens with the Councils. The Second Vatican Council expressly declared that it was not making use of infallibility. John XXIII declared, in the decree convening the Council that it was a pastoral and not a doctrinal Council and therefore did not aim at teaching any doctrine with infallibility but only to give guidelines for action.

However, there are Councils that teach dogmas such as the First Vatican Council that taught the dogma of papal infallibility. So we have the obligation to accept without any discussion this truth revealed by the infallible power instituted by Jesus Christ to govern the Church. In the pontificate of Pius IX you have two dogmas proclaimed in different ways. The first was the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which the Pope proclaimed ex-autoritate propria, that is, on his own authority without the support of any Council. Then you have the dogma of papal infallibility, proclaimed by the First Vatican Council.

Now there is also another way for the Popes to exercise the privilege of infallibility where they consecutively teach the same truth in a long series of documents of the ordinary Magisterium. This is because one cannot admit that Providence would allow many Popes to teach the same untruth for a long time. So here enters infallibility. Note that one is not saying that each encyclical contains infallible teachings. It may, but not necessarily so. Often they do not. But when you have a series of non-infallible acts teaching the same thing, over time this series ends up enjoying the privilege of infallibility. This is the infallibility of the documents of the ordinary Magisterium of the Church.

This is a very safe source for the faithful, because the Popes, at least until a short time ago, continuously taught the same doctrine for many centuries. So we have a huge number of papal documents repeating and confirming one another throughout the ages on the same points of doctrine, thus providing the faithful with complete peace of conscience in accepting as true the doctrine that they have taught.

Let us now place ourselves as a Catholic at the time of the Renaissance. When a Renaissance Catholic looked at the Popes’ behavior, he often saw them doing things that Church doctrine condemns, not only in their private lives but often in their capacity as Popes; things which, though not dogmatic or magisterial by nature, took on a quasi-official aspect inside the Church but were censurable and bad.

For example, on the facade of the St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican there is something that manifests pride and pretentiousness and therefore, condemned by Catholic doctrine. After Pope Paul V of the House of Borghese finished St. Peter’s Basilica, he ordered a ribbon in beautiful gold and blue mosaic, showy like an outdoor advertisement, to be put on its facade with the words: “Paulus Quintus, Borghesi, fecit,” made by Paul V. This shows an almost feminine vanity. No one with a modicum of modesty or shame would place a banner on the facade of the most important Church in Christendom declaring, “I am the one who built it.” Even more so when he was still reigning as a pope, if his successor did that it would be all right, but he did it during his reign.

Imagine that one of you builds a house and writes on the outside: “So and so built this.” What would you think of that? You would have a disagreeable sensation. But that’s only the beginning. On the bronze door of St. Peter’s Basilica, there are bas-relief depictions of pagan legends everyone can see. These things are undeniable. Official art manuals describe it, and they include the infamous legend of Leda and the swan, a homosexual tale right on the door of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Now, how can one explain this brazenness of paganism on the door of St. Peter’s? An individual Catholic passes by the door and sees that. How can that be explained or defended? You can’t, and no later Pope did. It is wrong and that’s the end of it. What must the faithful of the time of “Paulus Quintus Borghese” do in face of this?

He might have a problem of conscience and ask himself, do I now also have the right to place an inscription on my house, “little so and so built this”? If he does, he sins against modesty. But then, if a Pope sinned, is there not a doctrinal expression behind this fact? And was there not a kind of insinuation that it is not a sin on the part of the Pope, that it is not a lack of humility to do something like that?

No. When a Pope sins or practices a bad action he is not insinuating that the action is good; the action is bad. Someone may say: but how can we know it is bad? Take a look at every previous Pope and all the preceding treatises on morals, at the whole longstanding mentality of the Church, and you can analyze this act. His action in this concrete case is not doctrinal. It is an action that clashes with Catholic doctrine, and if it clashes with Catholic doctrine, it is an erroneous action.

So it was very easy for an individual Catholic of the time of the Renaissance to clearly reject censurable things done by the Popes. Incidentally, on this point the Holy See has an extraordinary grandeur and largesse, because it does not hide such things. They remain there like historic marks of the miseries through which the Church has gone. When someone asks anyone from the Holy See if a certain thing was well done, the answer is, it was badly done. But how could the Pope have done something bad? He did it because he is infallible only in doctrine under certain circumstances but he is not infallible in his personal actions. This is the correct teaching of the Church.

Take Lucretia Borgia, for example. At the Vatican, I visited the apartment of Lucretia Borgia, daughter of Pope Alexander Borgia. This is an aberration: it is known that Lucretia Borgia held orgies there. And there’s no point denying she was the Pope’s daughter, as official Church historians themselves say she was. Obviously, she was a daughter he had before becoming Pope, but his daughter she was. She hosted orgies there, and there are immoral paintings in her apartment, which every tourist can see. What should a Renaissance Catholic do about it? Should he become immoral because the Pope consented for his daughter to be immoral and somehow Church doctrine has changed? Of course not, this is something elementary. His daughter sinned, and he sinned by allowing her do to this. However, we must not follow a Pope’s bad habits.

Someone may say: fine, but now comes the doctrinal part. Can a Pope make a doctrinal error? Yes, because the Popes themselves say so, they have documents in which they say they are not infallible. What does infallible mean? Infallible is one who does not fail, err or fall.  If they say in a document that they are not infallible, they are saying they are fallible. There is nothing in between. And when the Pope is saying that he is not infallible in that act, he is saying that act is fallible.

Someone may reply: But how can I know? Very simply: don’t criticize the Pope’s doctrine; go to previous Popes and see if there are longstanding teachings of the Catholic Church opposed to the new Pope’s doctrine; if there are, then his teaching is wrong. That’s the end of that.

Again someone may come back: But why is this Pope’s document worth less than those of previous Popes? A long continuity in teaching confers infallibility upon ordinary documents. This is opposed to an isolated document by a Pope, saying in the same document that he does not intend it to be infallible; therefore it is a document that may be fallible. To me it seems very clear.

People often have emotional objections regarding this doctrine, and the hard part about psychological or emotional difficulties is their non-logical character. Because when dealing with a subconscious reasoning you can help the person make explicit that reasoning and refute it. But a psychological and emotional difficulty is at times so instinctive that it is extremely difficult to deal with the problem.

I believe the greatest difficulty a TFP member could have concretely is this: In the TFP they say that a long series of Popes taught this. I have no religious culture to confirm this; I have no time to study. Could it be that they are mistaken and that a long series of Popes did not teach this? I believe this the objection that a newcomer to the TFP could more easily make, and perhaps it would be interesting to analyze it.

I would answer the following way. Look for a TFP member who is cultured and knows Catholic doctrine well; indicate the point you would like to have clarified. That TFP member will show you documents of Popes who affirm that the Popes that preceded them also taught the same thing. Now, our present Pope very often quotes Hans Kung and Yves Marie-Joseph Congar. The preceding Popes never quoted living theologians but were committed to prove that the Church had always thought that way. So they would quote Church Doctors, saints and previous Pontiffs to confirm their works.

Thus, in papal encyclicals one often sees the confirmation of this doctrine. If you don’t find it, ask an older person to look up a treatise on Catholic doctrine and you will see. Treatises on Catholic doctrine usually quote these sources, and the person can see for himself. There is no other way. I do not have a magic wand to touch the forehead of the individual and make these names come into his mind, without a modicum of study. You need to have a little patience and look for someone who will show it to you.

For example, take private property. It is easy to show that all Popes always considered individual property as a necessary consequence of two Commandments of God’s Law. This is found in Leo XIII’s expositions on Catholic doctrine along with other issues.

All Popes before the Renaissance fought immorality. All of a sudden in the Renaissance, the Popes stopped fighting immorality and allowed artists to produce immoral works. And if a saint were to show up in Rome and begin to preach against immorality, he would have to base his teaching on the doctrine of previous Popes. He would have to resort to the longstanding doctrine, declaring, this is the doctrine on morals, and I lament the fact that the Pope is not fulfilling his duty. By this, I am doing mine. For otherwise, by omission we would give the Pope the right to revoke the sixth and ninth Commandment’s of God’s Law, which would be absurd.

Would this rebuke be against the Pope’s actions or doctrine? It would be against the doctrine behind the action. The fact that Popes fought immorality by taking action has some value to corroborate the doctrine, but it is small. What is needed is to make explicit and declare the doctrine. In certain circumstances, the general consensus of the faithful is an authentic source of Church teaching. For example, you never hear anything that the doctors and saints have always taught about dancing. You no longer see the Church condemn balls. However, she condemned them so severely in the past that her silence today does not mean anything, for the Church does not teach by omission. She teaches in a positive way.

How long does it take for a doctrine of the ordinary Magisterium of the Church to become infallible? I believe this has not been defined. It is a long succession, without a set time. Catholic doctrine is made of these imponderables. Now, one thing is for sure: all the points for which the TFP has fought, opposing so many errors that freely circulate today are doctrines from times immemorial, from the early days of the Church.