Word: churches
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Since the First Vatican Council of 1870, it has been a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church that the Pope, when he speaks ex cathedra on matters of faith or morals, is infallible. In the most provocative religious book of the year, Infallibility and the Evidence (Templegate; $4.95), a Catholic bishop, the Most Rev. Francis Simons of Indore in India, argues that there is no Scriptural evidence for the doctrine. He suggests that it be abandoned...
Dutch-born Bishop Simons, who has been a missionary in India since 1935, expects that he will be asked to resign his see as a result of the book, which he wrote out of intellectual conviction. "Having come to the conclusion that I could prove that the Church's belief in infallibility is mistaken," he explains, "I felt I had no choice but to publish my case." The book will unquestionably be studied with care in the Vatican, since Bishop Simons says flatly that "a scrutiny of the traditional arguments seems to prove that the very structure of infallibility...
Simons is equally unimpressed by another traditional argument for infallibility: that the Apostles in their teaching had the special protection of the Holy Spirit, and that the church is heir to that divine guidance. Whenever the Apostles call upon the Paraclete for assistance, he points out, it is only to refresh their recollections about details of Christ's ministry, and never to appeal for "proof that their teaching is true." Simons cites Jesus' declaration in John 14:26: "The Holy Spirit will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said...
Error and Ignorance. The particular infallibility that is claimed for the Pope is based, in part, on Jesus' words to Peter in Matthew 16:18. "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church." Simons argues that Jesus was simply singling out Peter as the foremost of the Apostles and was not investing him with a special spiritual charisma in teaching. In any case, he adds, "if the evidence for ecclesiastical infallibility is not valid, the case for papal infallibility collapses with...
Simons also says that the mystique of infallibility "has not succeeded in saving the Church, its Popes, Bishops and other members from error and ignorance." Because of the church's claim to infallibility, "even her good arguments cease to be effective. Behind them outsiders suspect specious pleadings, not honest attempts to find the truth." Therefore, Simons concludes, "belief in infallibility is an obstacle to progress and the Gospel's effectiveness." It is also, more obviously, an obstacle to Christian unity. Simons argues that the demands of ecumenicism also justify the church's abandonment of the infallibility claim...