Yet even after a decade of this sort of behavior, there are still some orthodox Catholics who insist, every time Pope Francis makes one of these dubious remarks, that he has been misunderstood, and that the fault lies not with him but with the media who report on his words or with critics who interpret him uncharitably. These “popesplainers” (as their critics have labeled them) sometimes appeal to what has been called the “infallible safety thesis.” On this view, while popes can err when not speaking ex cathedra, they cannot make dangerous errors, and in particular cannot say anything that might lead the faithful into error on some matter of faith or morals.
Hence, whenever Pope Francis says something that everyone else takes to be obviously hard to reconcile with traditional teaching, these popesplainers judge it a priori to be at least “safe,” so that anyone who thinks otherwise simply must be misunderstanding it. Into the bargain, they often accuse the critics of the error of private judgment, or of being schismatic, or of hating the pope or otherwise having bad motives. Fans of 80s pop music might call this now routine set of moves the popesplainer’s “safety dance.”
One problem with the “safety” thesis is that it is not what the Church herself teaches, as theologian John Joy has shown. Another problem is that it is the longstanding position of theologians recognized by the Church as orthodox that popes can indeed err on matters of faith and morals when not speaking ex cathedra. A third problem is that the Church herself has acknowledged that such errors are not only possible, but have in fact occurred. For the notorious Pope Honorius was condemned by his successors and by three papally-approved councils for giving aid and comfort to heresy, with the councils even flatly labeling Honorius himself a heretic. (I discuss the case of Honorius in detail here and here.) Some have defended Honorius against these charges, but what is relevant is that popes and papally-approved councils judged Honorius to be guilty of them. That means that either Honorius was wrong or these later popes were wrong. And in either case we would have a very serious theological error. That suffices to show that non-ex cathedra papal teaching is not always “safe.”
Go here to read the rest. It is an old saying in my profession that hard cases make bad law. I think in regard to the papacy bad popes make theologians wince. At Vatican I there were some proponents of the view that everything a pope said in regard to faith and morals was infallible. Fortunately, this concept of infallibility was not accepted.
In all the years of popesplaining of Francis, not once have I seen any of the perpetrators reconcile their knee-jerk defense of anything and everything he says or has written for him with the decades-long, open rejection by “liberal Catholics” of nearly everything uttered by his two predecessors. No ad hominem attacks or accusations of schism or infidelity for them! Oh, no. They were all just speaking from their consciences. Well, OK. Sauce for the goose…
bad theology… bad law… much wincing and long correcting..
Not so with engineering. Bad engineering shows up right away! Or at least eventually without question.
David WS is 100% correct.
The Russians put graphite extenders on the boron control rods at Chernobyl and designed the core such that it had a positive void coefficient of reactivity. They rolled the dice, and the Laws of Physics bit them in the behind.
The Japanese ignored the warnings of GE, the reactor manufacturer, about tsunamis happening every century or so at Fukushima, so don’t put your emergency diesel generators on the beach. The Japanese said, “It’s only been 60 years.” They rolled the dice and the Laws of Physics won again.
There is a “Find Out / Frack Around” graph circulating around the internet, but a word other than frack is used, so I can’t post it here. These theologians are awfully close to the find out area on the graph as they frack around. And it’s going to be worse than when the steam explosion blew the reactor vessel top off Chernobyl, when hydrogen gas accumulation at Fukushima detonated and blew apart the upper containment walls. Keep on fracking around, you Popesplainers, and the Almighty will let you find out.
LQC,
Without knowing all the details, from experience I’m sure it was either the accountants to save cost, or the managers to save time.. who “ignored the warnings..” not the engineers. – It’s almost always the case.
Although we’re blessed in this profession in dealing with hard facts, and cold physics with no BS, the stupidity of others often causes us to suffer as a Casandra.
[…] Fr. John Zuhlsdorf at 1 Peter 55. Hmmm – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic6. Bad Popes Make Theologians Wince – Donald R. McClarey, J.D., at The American Catholic7. Two Americas – Patrick J. Morgan […]