Madam, – Bishop Pat Buckley (March 6th) must know that infallibility does not mean impeccability, nor that the personal views and actions of any pope are somehow deemed to be validated or vindicated by virtue of his office. Papal infallibility can only apply to dogmatic teachings on faith or morals which are clearly intended to be definitive and binding.
Since the Vatican I definition of infallibility in 1870 this power has been invoked only once – regarding the teaching of the Assumption of Mary. Thus, even the papal document Humanae Vitae is not considered infallible.– Yours, etc,
Madam, – Nowhere did Pope Benedict suggest that “gay people are a greater threat to the world than climate change” (Bishop Pat Buckley, March 6th). Since Bishop Richard Williamson has never been a member of the episcopate of the Catholic Church he cannot be “reconciled” with it, nor is he yet reconciled with the Church itself. He has had an excommunication lifted that was imposed for his having been illicitly ordained bishop. Holding bizarre views on the Shoah is not an excommunicable offence.
Mgr Gerhard Wagner was never appointed “Bishop of Linz”, but auxiliary bishop of that diocese.
Bishop Buckley knows very well that none of those issues have anything to do with papal infallibility. He knows very well that the only infallible declaration of a pope since Vatican I, which declared the doctrine of papal infallibility in 1870, was that of the Assumption by Pope Pius XII in 1950, when he confirmed something that had been part of the Church’s belief and expressed in its liturgy for the best part of two millennia. – Yours, etc,