Why the Pope must be infallible, even if he's not impeccable

21^st Sunday in Ordinary Time

Matthew 16:13-20

And I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.

We do not hesitate to assert the Christ Jesus is the true rock upon which the Catholic Church is built – how could there be any other? And yet, we likewise affirm that Peter is the rock upon which Christ has built his Church; for the Greek is clear: “Peter” is petros while “rock” is petra, and the Aramaic would be clearer yet as the one word used for both was cepha.

It is as though Jesus said, “You are Rock (Petros/Cepha) and upon this rock (petra/cepha) [which is you], I will build my Church.” Christ is the rock and Peter is the rock, Christ is the foundation and Peter is the foundation. A man’s faith is founded upon Christ, only if it is founded upon Peter’s confession. Christ is the rock of the Church, only if the Church is set upon the rock of Peter’s profession of faith.

Let us consider why it is enough for the Pope to be infallible (i.e. unable to err in teaching), even if he is not impeccable (i.e. unable to sin).

The death of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Latin tradition

"The Death of the Virgin Mary" by Caravaggio

August 15th, Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Many Catholics (at least in the West) are under the impression that the Latin (Roman) Church favors the opinion that the Mother of God did not die, but was assumed at the end of her life without suffering the separation of body and soul; while the Eastern Church favors the opinion that the Blessed Virgin Mary did die, and that they refer to this death as a “dormition”. In truth, although there are certain modern westerners who (quite rashly) maintain that the Virgin did not die, the Latin tradition has generally been even stronger than that of the East in affirming that our Lady suffered death: While the East speaks of “the falling asleep (dormition) of the Theotokos”, the West has traditionally favored the more blunt “the death of the Virgin Mary”.

The Latin tradition is so strongly in favor of the doctrine that our Lady suffered death before her Assumption that this was very nearly adopted at the Second Vatican Council after being promoted especially by mariologists of the Roman school.

On the less-than-reliable web source Wikipedia (as of July 2011), we find this same confusion - as though the Latin Church was not just as strong as the East in affirming the death of the Virgin Mary: “The Orthodox Church teaches that Mary died a natural death, like any human being. […] Roman Catholic teaching holds that Mary was ‘assumed’ into heaven in bodily form. Some Catholics agree with the Orthodox that this happened after Mary's death, while some hold that she did not experience death. Pope Pius XII, in his Apostolic constitution, Munificentissimus Deus (1950), which dogmatically defined the Assumption, left open the question.”

We shall briefly consider at least one reason as to why this confusion has crept into popular thinking. [For a discussion of whither the Blessed Mother was assumed, please consider this article, or this one.]

In defense of St. Martha, On the sanctification of work

Work is necessary, and it must be sanctified

July 29^th, Feast of St. Martha

And the Lord answering, said to her: Martha, Martha, thou art careful, and art troubled about many things: But one thing is necessary. Mary hath chosen the best part, which shall not be taken away from her. (Luke 10:41-42)

To be clear: We do not intend to "defend St. Martha" against the Lord, but rather to defend her from the popular (and sentimental) caricatures with which the modern world has obscured the true meaning of Christ's words. Today, it has become popular to speak of the importance of following Mary’s example in this dispute between the two sisters from Bethany. Certainly, Mary did chose the best part – which is the life of prayer. Still, we must recall that most of us (i.e. most of those reading this blog and also all the contributors) are called to the active life in the world – we are called to the life of work, which is symbolized by St. Martha.

When should I receive Anointing of the Sick? or, How sick is "sick"?

There has been, quite happily, a realization in recent years that the Anointing of the Sick (i.e. Extreme Unction) is a sacrament of the “sick” and not of the “dying”. Last week, we recognized that this sacrament (because it is not for the “dying”) is not appropriate for those who are in serious and even immediate danger of death but are not sick – e.g. for persons about to enter war, those about to be executed, and also those about to undergo “serious” surgery who yet have no serious illness.

What became clear in the comment box of the previous article is that there is no little confusion about what the Church means by “serious sickness” and “the sick”. How sick does one have to be before receiving Anointing? In what circumstances does old age call for the sacrament of Anointing? In other words: How sick is “sick”?

Finally, we must also consider how often the sacrament of Anointing should be repeated.

The Primacy of Peter, established by Christ and confirmed by the Holy Spirit

Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam

Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul

Though our title to this article specifies the primacy of St. Peter as the Prince of the Apostles, we shall consider not only the God-given role entrusted to the Head of the Apostolic College, but also the establishment of the hierarchical structure of the Church in general.

We offer this little article as a work of apologetics: An attempt to demonstrate, from the scriptural witness alone, that the Papacy and the College of Bishops is not man-made but is of God. Rather than multiplying citations of the Sacred Text (indeed, there are many hundreds of references to the hierarchical structure of the Church in both the Old and New Testaments), we will consider only a few particularly important passages.

I offer this meager piece in honor of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, on this the 60^th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood of Jesus Christ.

Holy Thursday: The first concelebrated Mass

Within certain traditional Catholic circles, the practice of priests concelebrating Mass is looked upon with some suspicion. I tend to sympathize, since it is duly noted that the practice of multiple priests celebrating a single Mass is not a regular part of the Roman Catholic liturgical tradition.  However, while one may object to certain practical applications of the rite of concelebration, it is quite certain that the theory or idea of concelebration cannot be rejected. Simply put, it is entirely possible for multiple priests to consecrate one and the same host at a single Mass.

Various abuses of the practice of concelebration have led some priests to adopt a truly disgusting and despicable phraseology regarding concelebration – they tell us that concelebration should be “safe, legal, and rare.” This, of course, is comparing the practice of concelebration to the murder of children through abortion (the phrase “safe, legal, and rare” being the cry of pro-abortion advocates). Rather than adopting such a ghastly catch-phrase, we will attempt to elucidate the ratio of concelebration. This will show why the practice is both valid and, at the same time, ought to be reserved to the most solemn of occasions.

Mass media and the duty of parents

Parents should remember that they have a most serious duty to guard carefully lest shows, publications and other things of this sort, which may be morally harmful, enter their homes or affect their children under other circumstances.
                                                                         
                                                            - Vatican II, Inter Mirifica, 10


In the teaching of the Second Vatican Council on the use of social communications, the Council Fathers treat comprehensively of the moral use of the mass media by all involved with them.  The quotation above, however, points to what is perhaps the most widely practical aspect of their teaching: the role of parents in their children's exposure to the means of social communication.  It is that most solemn duty that we will discuss briefly here.


When we speak of the means of social communication, we are thinking not only of television, film, radio, and the press (which the Council had specifically in mind), but also of the Internet (especially social networking sites), mobile phones, personal data assistants, and the many other technological spheres of human life where ideas are communicated en masse.  One is easily overwhelmed by the availability and extent of such means of communication and by their normalcy in the life of our young people.  It seems more difficult than ever for parents to fulfill their duty to govern and regulate the exposure of their children to the means of social communication.  And yet they must.

What happened to Epiphanytide?, or The hypocrisy of the Liturgical Renewal

The public Epiphany of Christ

“One of the weaknesses of the postconciliar liturgical reform can doubtless be traced to the armchair strategy of academics, drawing up things on paper which, in fact, would presuppose years of organic growth. The most blatant example of this is the reform of the Calendar: those responsible simply did not realize how much the various annual feasts had influenced Christian people's relation to time […] they ignored a fundamental law of religious life.” Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith, 81-82 (published by Ignatius Press).

The Reformed Novus Ordo Calendar is extremely cautious about respecting the principle of the consecration of time – for this reason, there has been great emphasis on celebrating the Liturgy of the Hours at the “canonical hours,” i.e. praying Morning Prayer in the morning and Evening Prayer in the evening. It was this zeal to sanctify the day which lead the Church to explicitly forbid the ancient practice of celebrating Morning Prayer immediately after the Christmas midnight Mass (though it is perfectly acceptable to pray Night Prayer after midnight on any day of the year).

Indeed, this great concern of the now-a-days Church is particularly manifest at Christmas. For example, while Canon Law allows a priest to celebrate three Masses on Christmas day (CIC 951.1), the General Instruction of the Roman Missal clarifies that this permission is given “provided that the Masses are celebrated at their proper times of day” (GIRM 204) – three Masses on Christmas, but they must be at midnight, at dawn, and during the day (we are left to wonder what happens if the papal midnight Mass begins at 10pm).

However, with all this focus on the sanctification of time, the reformed plan of the Novus Ordo calendar simply butchers the season of Christmas – and follows this by the destruction of Epiphanytide.