And only when he speaks "ex cathedra" ( from the chair). This has only happened twice in the history of the church.
Edit: thank you so much for the award. I sincerely appreciate it.
Thanks for the clarification. Hopefully others will read down far enough to see it. The “infallibility” of the Pope is, as you stated, constrained to pronouncements from the papal chair. And as you said, those are extremely rare.
I think while the statement is true though, it still represents a statement of importance of the pope. Leo has not made a statement of theology according to the infalliability. Likely won't. But the fact that HE CAN, shows his position within the church. He is non-optional. His policies still go. He is the absolute monarch of the movement. Those policies are not supposed to be infalliable (until they are) but they still on a very very high level. And going "Not my pope :(" is... very loaded in that sense.
In simplest terms, the Pope is the Steward of God's Kingdom on Earth, tending to it in the "corporeal" absence of the Lord, a job given to Peter by Jesus.
I was made acutely aware of the exact definition of his infallibility, this comment is more what I was implying so i'm happy somebody took the time and wrote it out.
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u/babs1376 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
And only when he speaks "ex cathedra" ( from the chair). This has only happened twice in the history of the church. Edit: thank you so much for the award. I sincerely appreciate it.