No, I'm asking you to explain why you ACCEPT the solemn definition of papal infallibility.  You can't say that it's because it was a teaching that met the notes of infallibility defined by Vatican I, since that's circular reasoning.

While I don't want the thread to derailed, you make a logically false assertion that simply because I hold that the Church enjoys an infallibility outside of the strict limits of papal infallibility that I REJECT the dogma of papal infallibility?  Uhm, Pius IX said that the reason that the Old Catholics must accept papal infallibility is BECAUSE OF THE CHURCH'S INDEFECTIBILITY.  That which you claim to be contradicted by Vatican I is actually the very reason that Pius IX gives as to why Catholics must accept it to remain Catholic.  So, the authority of Vatican I's definition of papal infallibility is rooted in the indefectibility of the Church's teaching.  You claim that Vatican I defined something that precluded the very foundation on which its authority rests?

You've also never refuted the quote from Archbishop Lefebvre where he stated that the papacy is guided by the Holy Ghost and protected in such a way as to preclude the degree of destruction perpetrated by the Conciliar Church.

I ACCEPT the solemn definition of Papal Infallibility, Lad, because it is clear from Scripture and Tradition, that Our Lord Jesus Christ established an infallible teaching Church that we are to hear under pain of damnation, as I explained above. It clearly exists to teach us what we have to believe and how we have to act. Faith and morals. If the Church cannot tell us when it is infallible, how can it teach infallibly on anything? When the Church teaches us that it is teaching infallibly, it is teaching infallibly or words have no meaning and it is the end of the Church. We see that St Robert Bellarmine held exactly the same teaching as the Council defined and he quoted ancient authorities in this very same understanding of infallibility. The Council of Trent very clearly taught infallibly well before Vatican I, because it very clearly revealed its intention to teach infallibly. To teach us infallibly, the Pope has to want to be infallible. Vatican II very specifically refused to teach infallibly.

You must accept the definition of Vatican I exactly as it is, not interpret it. It is not to be interpreted, developed, extended, reformed... If the Church tells us that the Pope is infallible when a, b AND c are met, then it is infallible when a, b AND c are met, in and of itself, and then only, and you may not change it to "the Pope is infallible, in and of himself, sometimes when a only or b only or c only, because if you examine what the Pope was trying to say when he condemned the Old Catholics".... yes, it sounds like modernism doesn't it? Interpreting definitions of the Church.

So, the bottom line here is that papal infallibility itself is rooted in and founded on the indefectibility of the Church, as taught by Pope Pius IX, and is not something Ladislaus "made up" and which has never been taught by the Church.

I hope you can see from my previous posting that your error is that Pope Pius IX was relating it to the Infallible Magisterium, whereas you want to relate it to every pronouncement of the Ordinary Magiesterium.

Ok, no worries about the “devil” “attack”.

So, what is meant by “infallibly safe” is that the object *can’t* be detrimental to ones salvation. For instance, Pope Gregory XVI gave the approbation of Saint Alphonsus’ teachings when he decreed that professors of theology could safely teach any opinion of St. Alphonsus, and that confessors, without weighting reasons, could safely follow him. Obviously, there could conceivably be error in them, but they are infallibly safe to follow. Does this make sense?

My argument for sedevacantism is not based solely on what we’ve been hashing out, but also on the fact that a pertinacious and manifest heretic is not a member of the Catholic Church and thus a nonmember cannot be the head of which he is not a member of. Incidentally, the Archbishop, understood this and at one point, at least, was ready to declare the see vacant. This is a fact that cannot be denied.

I understand what you mean, yes, but I don't believe we can say that, and neither did Archbishop Lefebvre when it comes to the Ordinary Magisterium. Which is why he said of the Second Vatican Council that we must ask investigate to what extent Pope Paul VI wished to engage his infallibility. I know there are other arguments for sedevacantism but I believe that every single one of them comes up short, there is always a question of trying to affirm too much, taking an argument that has some merit and making it absolutely certain when it is not. Sure, the Archbishop was shocked by the actions of modern popes, especially Pope John Paul II and Assisi. Who can forget the cartoons he sent to the Pope? Yet, in spite of askin the question, he never adopted the sedevacantist position. He continued to pray for the Pope and presume in favour of the papacy, precisely because it is not certain that he is not pope. Would that change now? I don't see any reason to believe that. This current papacy has more of the shock factor, but the errors of his predecessors were none the less grave.

In the 10 years on this forum I've never seen a R&R poster make this false accusation against sedevacantists. Why now?

I'm not sure what you mean by false accusation, 2V.
I can't remember exactly how the issue came up with Ladislaus myself now, but surely you are aware that many sedevacantists hold that the Pope cannot err when teaching on faith and morals, period! But this Pope has erred when teaching of faith and morals. Therefore, they say, he cannot be Pope.
Now that is false, because that is not what Vatican I taught, as Archbishop Lefebvre said.
So the argument is as old as sedevacantism, and the rejection of it is just as old.

If you read the text of Cardinal Franzelin, it doesn’t seem to say what this “X” fellow says it means. It seems to me that it supports our position. (See attachment)


The following is from Canon George Smith in an article in the Clergy Review expressing what Catholic’s have to believe:


“…that much of the authoritative teaching of the Church, whether in the form of Papal encyclicals, decisions, condemnations, replies from Roman Congregations -such as the Holy office - or from the Biblical Commission, is not an exercise of the infallible Magisterium.  And here once again our cautious believer raises his voice:
“Must I believe it?”

The answer is implicit in the principles already established.  We have seen that the source of the obligation to believe is not the infallibility of the Church but her divine commission to teach.  Therefore, whether her teaching is guaranteed by infallibility or not, the Church is always the divinely appointed teacher and guardian of revealed truth, and consequently the supreme authority of the Church, even when it does not intervene to make an infallible and definitive decision on matters of faith or morals, has the right, in virtue of the divine commission, to command the obedient assent of the faithful. 

In the absence of infallibility the assent thus demanded cannot be that of faith, whether Catholic or ecclesiastical; it will be an assent of a lower order, proportioned to its ground or motive.  But whatever name be given to it - for the present we may call it belief - it is obligatory; obligatory not because the teaching is infallible - it is not - but because it is the teaching of the divinely appointed Church.  It is the duty of the Church, as Franzelin has pointed out, not only to teach revealed doctrine but also to protect it, and therefore the Holy See “may prescribe as to be followed or proscribe as to be avoided theological opinions or opinions connected with theology, not only with the intention of infallibly deciding the truth by a definitive pronouncement, but also - without any such intention - merely for the purpose of safeguarding the security of Catholic doctrine.”  If it is the duty of the Church, even though non-infallibly, to “prescribe or proscribe” doctrines to this end, then it is evidently also the duty of the faithful to accept them or reject them accordingly.”

Excellent posts, Ladislaus and QVD, very much to the point.

I admit I had not heard of this 'infallible safety' thesis.

Please do take note, however, that it is theological thesis and to be applied in the sense meant - note in particular what I have bolded, especially: proportioned to its ground and motive; to protect doctrine...

One would have to analyse the post Vatican II magisterium in that light.

It is obviously not infallible as the Vatican I definition is.

We must also ask the question, is Cardinal Franzelin meaning this thesis to be used to deny the possibility that a Pope could abuse his authority to use the Ordinary Magisterium to oppose Tradition, the very thing that guards it from error? Does he mean it to be used to judge a Pope to have fallen from office for doing such a thing?
 
This is, after all, is the basis of our discussion, this notion that we can use infallibility to turn it on the Pope to depose him.

I have just started another thread with an article on the Infallible Magisterium. I very much recommend this little book from Angelus press:
https://angeluspress.org/products/pope-or-church
"The first essay, written by Dom Paul Nau, OSB (Solesmes) in 1956 lays down the groundwork for a theological understanding of the Church's Ordinary and Universal Magisterium, based especially upon the teaching of the First Vatican Council".

PV, I think this is a major problem for your argument: “space and time”

I have never seen a pre VII reference for this, do you have one?

You might be right Quo Vadis!

This is the rule given by St Vincent of Lerins in his commonitorium: quod ubique, quod semper et ab omnibus. That is, we hold fast to that which has been believed everywhere (space), always (time) and by all. That defines unviversality or catholicity.

Hence the Universal Ordinary Magisterium is the Ordinary Magisterium possessed of that quality of universality. I'm not sure how correct that is in every technicality.

Here is an excerpt from the thread I just started on the Infallible Magisterium: listen to it rather than me!

No act of the Ordinary Magisterium as such, taken in isolation, could claim the prerogative which belongs to the supreme judgment. If it did so, it would cease to be the Ordinary Magisterium. An isolated act is infallible only if the supreme Judge engages his whole authority in it so that he cannot go back on it. Such an act cannot be "reversible" without being plainly subject to error. But it is precisely this kind of act, against which there can be no appeal, which constitutes the Solemn [or Extraordinary] Judgment, and which thus differs from the Ordinary Magisterium" (ibid., note 1).

It follows that
Quote

the infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium, whether of the Universal Church or that of the See of Rome, is not that of a judgment, not that of an act to be considered in isolation, as if it could itself provide all the light necessary for it to be clearly seen. It is that of the guarantee bestowed on a doctrine by the simultaneous or continuous convergence of a plurality of affirmations or explanations, none of which could bring positive certitude if it were taken by itself alone. Certitude can be expected only from the whole complex, but all the parts concur in making up that whole (Pope or Church? op. cit., p.18).

Dom Paul Nau explains further:
Quote

In the case of the [Ordinary] universal Magisterium, this whole complex is that of the concordant teaching of the bishops in communion with Rome; in the case of the Ordinary pontifical Magisterium [i.e., the pope alone - Ed.], it is the continuity of teaching of the successors of Peter: in other words, it is the "tradition of the Church of Rome," to which Msgr. Gasser appealed at Vatican I (Collana Lacensis, col.404).

About this subject, A.C. Martimort wrote:
Quote

Bossuet's error consisted in rejecting the infallibility of the pope's Extraordinary Magisterium; but he performed the signal service of affirming most clearly the infallibility of the Ordinary Magisterium [of the pope] and its specific nature, which means that every particular act bears the risk of error ....To sum up: according to the Bishop of Meaux, what applies to the series of Roman popes over time is the same as what applies to the episcopal college dispersed across the world (Le Gallicanisme de Bossuet, Paris, 1953, p.558).

In fact, we know that the bishops, individually, are not infallible. Yet the totality of bishops, throughout time and space, in their moral unanimity, do enjoy infallibility. So if one wishes to ascertain the Church's infallible teaching one must not take the teaching of one particular bishop: it is necessary to look at the "common and continuous teaching" of the episcopate united to the pope, which "cannot deviate from the teaching of Jesus Christ" (E. Piacentini, O.F.M. Conv., Infaillible même dans les causes de canonisation? ENMI, Rome 1994, p.37).
The same thing applies to the Ordinary Infallible Magisterium of the Roman pope on his own: this Ordinary Magisterium is infallible not because each act is uttered by the pope, but because the particular teaching of which the pope's act consists "is inserted into a totality and a continuity" (Dom P.Nau, Le encycliques, op.cit.), which is that of the "series of Roman popes over time" (Martimort, op.cit.).
We can understand why, in their Ordinary Magisterium, the Roman popes have always been careful to associate themselves with their "venerable predecessors," often quoting them at length. "The Church speaks by Our mouth," said Pope Pius XI in the Casti Connubii. Pope Pius XII in Humani Generis, emphasized that "most of the time what is set forth and taught in the encyclicals is already, for other reasons, part of the patrimony of Catholic doctrine."
The very particular nature of the pope's Ordinary Infallible Magisterium was quite clear until Vatican I. While this Council was in session, La Civiltà Cattolica, which published (and still publishes) under the direct control of the Holy See, replied in these words to Fr. Gratry, who had criticized Pope Paul IV's Bull cuм ex Apostolus:
Quote

We ask Fr. Gratry, in all serenity, whether he believes that the Bull of Paul IV is an isolated act, so to speak, or an act that is comparable to others of the same kind in the series of Roman popes. If he replies that it is an isolated act, his argument proves nothing, for he himself affirms that the Bull of Paul IV contains no dogmatic definition. If he replies, as he must, that this Bull is, in substance, conformable to countless other similar acts of the Holy See, his argument says far more than he would wish. In other words, he is saying that a long succession of Roman popes have made public and solemn acts of immorality and injustice against the principles of human reason, of impiety towards God, and of apostasy against the Gospel (vol.X, series VII, 1870, p.54).

This means, in effect, that an "isolated act" of the pope is infallible only in the context of a "dogmatic definition"; outside dogmatic definitions, i.e., in the Ordinary Magisterium, infallibility is guaranteed by the complex of "countless other similar acts of the Holy See," or of a "long succession" of the successors of Peter.

I'm not sure what you mean by false accusation, 2V.
I can't remember exactly how the issue came up with Ladislaus myself now, but surely you are aware that many sedevacantists hold that the Pope cannot err when teaching on faith and morals, period! But this Pope has erred when teaching of faith and morals. Therefore, they say, he cannot be Pope.
Now that is false, because that is not what Vatican I taught, as Archbishop Lefebvre said.
So the argument is as old as sedevacantism, and the rejection of it is just as old.

Actually most sedevacantists I know think all of the V2 popes are not popes because of Vatican 2. Anything Bergoglio does is just icing on the cake and more proof he isnt a Catholic.