It appears that One Peter Five publisher Steve Skojec's infallible opinion that the Francis papacy cannot be invalid under any circumstances is leading him towards heresy.
Yesterday on Twitter, Skojec said to @JoshuaPotryus and @MikeJon:
"The problem is that infallibility appears to be tautological at best and borders on superstition at worst."
A example of a tautology is former Vice President Dan Quayle's:
"If we do not succeed, we run the risk of failure."
A possible Skojec tautology might go:
"If Francis is not a valid pope, we run the risk of Francis being a antipope" which may lead to this possible Skojec tautology:
"I believe Vatican I's papal infallibly teaching "appears... [to border] on superstition," so I accept as true that that infallible dogma "appears... [to border]" on being a unfounded belief."
"I believe Vatican I's papal infallibly teaching "appears... [to border] on superstition," so I accept as true that that infallible dogma "appears... [to border]" on being a unfounded belief."
It appears that Skojec's logic goes something like the following:
"Francis's papal validity is a 100% infallible belief and if anyone doubts it they are a schismatic therefore Vatican I's infallible teaching on papal infallibly "appears to be a tautological at best and borders on superstition at worst."
Pray an Our Father now for the restoration of the Church.
Comments
This would be to set up the pope as a kind of god, since only God is truly self-justifying like this, right simply because He is right, because He is Truth itself by His very essence.
I think in the wake of liberalism and its undermining of all authority, Catholics rallied to the pope and after Vatican I made this kind of mistake, at least implicitly, that the pope is right because he is right. But this is just another human error, setting up a man in God's place, undermining authority in an even more subtle way.
The pope is not right because he says he's right, and he's not infallible simply because he has the power of infallibility (although he is and he does). Vatican I is very clear. The pope is infallible BECAUSE Christ gave the keys to Peter and his Successors, and HE guaranteed by HIS divine power that the pope would never err in his solemn teaching capacity. This is perhaps a subtle distinction, but it makes a profound difference. It means that our faith is not centred on the person of the pope, but centred on Christ just has it has always been.
So when we come across a pope who appears to be erring in doctrine, the first thing we should ask is whether he is really erring or not. And if he is erring, the next thing to ask is whether his papacy is legitimate or whether he's an antipope. But for people with a worldly mindset who are too willing to accept the world's opinions and maintain their public image, and who's faith is more centred on the person of the pope than on the person of Christ, they would rather deny Vatican I and become heretics than accuse a possible antipope (despite there having been many, many antipopes in history) and fall temporarily out of favour.
To be honest at this point I would not be surprised if Skojec is a kind of double agent and 1p5 a false-opposition operation designed to keep potential critics of the regime confused and pigeonholed. Keep traditionalists as a whining bunch of scandalmongerers rather than united in any useful purpose.
The first Pope, the one selected by Christ Himself, made some serious errors. He was “corrected to his face”. And he took the correction, as all good Christians do, conforming himself to the will of Christ,
Popes are men, not gods. Not even an angel can alter God’s unchanging Doctrine. Pope’s are servants, like all Catholics, of the truth. We venerate those who lead us into all Truth. We correct and/or ignore those who lead us into error. Simple as that.
And Popes most certainly can lead themselves and others into error. The conditions of Vatican I infallibility are limited, not universal. That is the mistake Skojec makes, extrapolating limited V I infallibility into general superhuman infallibility,
It is our duty to inform fellow Christians, including the Pope, when they depart The Way. It is not obedience to allow others to fall into sin leading to hell and then say nothing.
Indeed, anything less is cowardice, as I believe Mr. Martinez has already noted.
We have arrived at the point at which this fact must be faced and acted upon. Low-profile, workaday Catholics are more likely to get this; they have fewer commitments outside the family. It's much safer to be little, poor, and of no account.