Vorkosigan

BibleInterp.com, always a great website, linked to this article on the new Pope's views. Excerpts:

• Ratzinger felt the Vatican was too repressive in the early 20th century. He recalls his beloved New Testament professor, Friedrich Wilhelm Maier, who had suffered previous Vatican banishment for asserting that Mark was the earliest Gospel, a view now widely taught on Catholic campuses......
  
  And in the New York lecture, titled "Biblical Interpretation in Crisis," Ratzinger was less worried about fundamentalists than about liberals who impose alien philosophies upon Scripture, rule out God's intervention in history and reject the possibility of miracles. Many Bible scholars, he complained, have too confidently made the "false claim" that historical-critical study of the Bible produces results as certain as those in natural science.
  
  Too often, he said, "this procedure leads to the sprouting of ever more numerous hypotheses until finally they turn into a jungle of contradictions. In the end, one no longer learns what the text says, but what it should have said."

Diogenes the Cynic

The irony. It burns.

John A. Broussard

This view is especially strange, since the only two infallible pronouncements of the Catholic Pontificate have been The Immaculate Conception and the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, neither of which have any basis in scripture.

I'm ready to be corrected on those infallible statements, since I know of no official pronouncement concerning what was said infallibly and what wasn't. The score, so far, is somewhere between the two above and six. I'm still checking.

As for scriptural justification for the status of Mary, I'm also willing to hear interpretations of the Bible which will justify those infallible pronouncements.

sorompio

I think there is also the "Inerrancy Of The Pope", decreed by Pius IX.
One have to bear in mind that for the Catholic Church the tradition has the same status as the Gospels.
As for Ratzinger, he is a professional liar, so none of his words really matter.

andrewcriddle

Papal infallibility was decreed by the first Vatican council under Pius IX in 1870

It is not a papal decree in the sense of one made by the Pope on his own without the agreement of a council.

Andrew Criddle

John A. Broussard

Was that an infallible decree? If so, can you give me an official Catholic source which states explicitly that this was an infallible decree. So far, I've come up with somewhere between two and six other infallible decrees.

Thanks.

ImmortalTechnique

i think papal infalliability, at least, can be found when reading scripture from a catholic perspective

"whatsoever you bind on earth, i will bind in heaven" or something like that- Jesus to Peter

Amaleq13

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Mt 16:17-19, KJV

andrewcriddle

Decrees with the full authority of an ecumenical council are IIUC always infallible.

See http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04423f.htm

The small number of infallible decrees you're talking about are decrees made by a pope on his own authority without the backing of an ecumenical council.



Andrew Criddle