Jewish Atheist Uncle Trying to Sort Things Out

A reader sends me some bafflement from his Jewish atheist uncle. He wrote to his uncle:

The Pope (Peter’s successor) was promised by Jesus that he would guide him to all truth. So, the Pope’s teaching on morals are infallible, because if Jesus promised it I am going to bet that he is capable of carrying out that promise.

and uncle replied:

Thanks for this – it allows me to understand your position. However, doesn’t that mean that actions of the Catholic Church, supported by Popes, must be moral? Does that mean the Inquisition was moral? Does that mean that the burning of heretics was moral?.

This is a common confusion. The Tradition distinguishes between infallibility (God preventing the Church from defining error as truth) and impeccability (inability to sin). The Church lays no claim whatsoever to the latter. So, for instance, when (Acts 15) Peter declares at the Council of Jerusalem that we are saved by the grace of God through faith in Christ and not by keeping the ceremonial laws of Moses he is speaking infallibly. However, when he then goes on to violate his own teaching by chickening out at Antioch and avoiding contact with Gentiles out of fear of being accused of not being Jewish enough for the local Jewish Christians, he is simply sinning. His actions don’t constitute an exercise of infallibility.

In related vein, not every action of a Pope or council is protected by infallibility. In fact, infallibility is rarely invoked. So the actions your uncle mentions are, in fact, prudential judgements which were not protected by infallibility. For two takes (one whimsical and one serious) infallibility, go here and here.

If Jesus guides the Pope, how can they change their minds? It was only relatively recently that the Pope said that the Jews were not responsible for the death of Jesus. Many lives would have been saved if that had been said a thousand years ago.

This is founded on another mistaken notion of what “infallibility” means. Infallibility is not the same thing as inspiration. Jesus guiding the Pope, whispering in his ear, telling him what to do next etc.: that would be inspiration. The Church does not teach anything like this. Rather, the Pope (and all the bishops) are the conservators of a body of Sacred Tradition handed down to them by the apostles (with the help of the Holy Spirit). They have received a certain grace to preserve that Tradition and to apply it, as best they can, to contemporary situations. But the thing to remember is that grace is grace, not magic. They remain the people they are, with the knowledge, freedom and wits they have in the culture in which they live. In this, they are like the Old Testament Jews, who were no strangers to barbarism themselves (indeed, Christians got their ideas about how to treat people they perceived as rebels against God from the Old Testament (see, for instance, Moses and the Golden Calf (Ex 32) or Phineas in the Book of Numbers). They made prudential judgements just like everybody else did, according to the light they had. And over time, both Jews and Christians have come to understand that biblical revelation about the dignity of the human person means more than “error has no rights.” It also means “Though error has no rights, persons in error *do* have rights.” That’s why Israelis do not engage in genocidal campaigns against non-Jews in the land of Canaan anymore and Christians no longer burn heretics.

And, by the way, the Pope and the Church sometimes protect Jews in the Middle Ages . Also, note the way in which the Council of Trent treats the casual way in which European Christians blamed Jews as peculiarly guilty of the death of Jesus:

“We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for he is in them) and hold him up to contempt. And it can be seen that our crime in this case is greater in us than in the Jews. As for them, according to the witness of the Apostle, “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” We, however, profess to know him. And when we deny him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on him.”

Trent’s point, like Paul’s, is that the people who crucified Jesus had no idea who he was. We Christians do, and so when we sin we are *more* guilty of crucifying Jesus than the people who handled the hammers.

But I digress. The basic point is that infallibility is actually a very modest claim, despite appearances. It essentially means that the Catholic Church is populated by nothing but screwups and without the special action of the Holy Spirit, the revelation of Christ would have been lost a half an hour after Pentecost. All it guarantees is that the revelation will not be lost, that the Church will not define as essential Catholic teaching something that is not true. It leaves the Pope and the rest of the Church free to sin, to screwup, to make terrible decisions, and to majorly blow it in huge ways, including persecution of Jews, forged Donations of Constantine, dumb liturgical changes, corrupt political alliances and all the rest of the parade of bad things done by Catholics.