Pope Fact: Infallible does not mean sinless

The question I got from Mehridith at the bottom of this older post is a common one:

"I don't understand how one can come to the conclusion that someone is without sin; i.e., the Pope being infallible. Can someone explain this to me, a faithful Protestant?" 

I whipped off a quick answer:

Hi Mehridith! I think I can clear it up fairly quickly. We don't believe that popes are without sin. All of them were/are sinners, and some were grave, horrible sinners. So, infallibility does not mean what you think it means. It means that, sinners that they are, the popes will never teach doctrine which is in error. Like the writers of the Bible who wrote without doctrinal error… the popes cannot teach error on issues of faith and morals. Hope that helps! I will come and write more in a bit if I get a chance. (But basically, infallibility is not impeccability.)

To expand just a bit, here are the facts:

1) All of the 266 popes have sinned, including the first pope, St. Peter, who committed among the worst of sins: He denied Christ three times during Christ's Passion.

2) While all of the popes have been sinners, it's also true that many of the popes have practiced heroic virtue, rising to the heights of great sanctity. The first popes (and several subsequent popes) died as martyrs for the faith, and many popes have been canonized or beatified. Saintly popes are common.

3) Though most popes were good and holy men, there were a handful of popes who were bad, wicked and/or corrupt. A recounting of their personal sin would make your hair curl! It is entirely possible that there are popes in hell.

4) Whether saintly or evil, no pope has ever taught heresy (i.e., no pope has ever taught error as truth). The Holy Spirit guides the Church and protects her so that the faithful will never be led into doctrinal error -- no matter who sits in the Chair of Peter.

5) If you wonder how someone can speak truth while not living it, think of a math professor teaching his students perfectly correct formulas and concepts, while he himself cheats on his taxes and cannot seem to keep a balanced checkbook. Or think of a chronic adulterer who preaches that adultery is wrong. His actions are evil, but what he says is perfectly true.


Just as God protected sinful men from teaching doctrinal error when writing the Bible, He also protected sinful Peter and his sinful successors from teaching doctrinal error while leading His Church.

Infallibility does not mean impeccability.


Related posts:

The Pope is not as powerful as you think

The different types of infallibility

"…and the Papacy remains"

Protestants: It's time to come back



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The Pope is not as powerful as you think.

Many people believe that the pope wields a strong and potentially tyrannical power over his flock. The concept of an infallible teacher leads them to imagine a dictator (even if benevolent) who can force doctrines upon Catholics at whim, leaving the faithful either a) anxious and uncertain about what dogmatic changes will come next to disturb their lives, or b) ready to run like lemmings off whatever cliff the Supreme Pontiff decides to lead them. Sure, maybe the current pope is mentally and emotionally stable, but what of the next? And the next? Think of the havoc he could wreak! Who in his right mind would put his life under the pope's authority?

In reality, however, the pope is not quite as powerful as one might think.

For example:

They say: "The pope has forbidden Catholics to use contraception!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that contraception is wrong. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope won't allow women to become priests!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has never admitted women to the priesthood. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope says women can't have abortions under any circumstances!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that any and all abortions are intrinsically evil (even when there's been debate over the issue of "ensoulment"). No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope won't approve pre-marital sex or homosexual activity!"

The reality is: For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is gravely sinful. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

They say: "The pope won't let people defraud the poor!"

Wait... what? The Church-bashers don't take issue with that part of the Catholic Faith? Well then, they might be happy to hear this:

For twenty centuries, the Church has taught that defrauding the poor is evil. No pope in any era has the authority or power to reverse a teaching of the Deposit of Faith.

Are you seeing a pattern here?

The pope has no power to change the Deposit of Faith. None. Nada. Zip and zilch. He can't change the moral law. He can't change the tenets of the Creed. He can't touch the truths of faith and morals because he has no authority to do so. 

As my friend Kim relates in her conversion story (a must read!), infallibility doesn't give a pope carte blanche to invent any doctrine he wants to make up; instead, infallibility is actually a highly limiting doctrine. Jesus' teachings are preserved and protected, leaving them intact throughout the centuries.

And our dear pope, thank God, is powerless to change a single truth. 

Providence is way cool!

So, I am down in the kitchen this morning, cooking up some eggs for breakfast (yep, that's one thing I can cook!), lost in thought about the latest comments on this post. I glance over to my right to see a magazine laying open on the counter. I am struck by the title of the exposed article, "Finding the Source of All True Love" and the photo of a joyful Pope Benedict XVI. The text of the article was the following excerpt from his address to youth at Westminster Cathedral on September 18:

I ask each of you, first and foremost, to look into your own heart. Think of all the love that your heart was made to receive, and all the love it is meant to give. After all, we were made for love. This is what the Bible means when it says that we are made in the image and likeness of God: we were made to know the God of love, the God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and to find our supreme fulfillment in that divine love that knows no beginning or end.

We were made to receive love, and we have. Every day we should thank God for the love we have already known, for the love that has made us who we are, the love that has shown us what is truly important in life. We need to thank the Lord for the love we have received from our families, our friends, our teachers, and all those people in our lives who have helped us to realize how precious we are, in their eyes and in the eyes of God.

We were also made to give love, to make it the inspiration for all we do and the most enduring thing in our lives. At times this seems so natural, especially when we feel the exhilaration of love, when our hearts brim over with generosity, idealism, the desire to help others, to build a better world. But at other times we realize that it is difficult to love; our hearts can easily be hardened by selfishness, envy and pride. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the great Missionary of Charity, reminded us that giving love, pure and generous love, is the fruit of a daily decision. Every day we have to choose to love, and this requires help, the help that comes from Christ, from prayer and from the wisdom found in his word, and from the grace which he bestows on us in the sacraments of his Church.

This is the message I want to share with you today. I ask you to look into your hearts each day to find the source of all true love. Jesus is always there, quietly waiting for us to be still with him and to hear his voice. Deep within your heart, he is calling you to spend time with him in prayer. But this kind of prayer, real prayer, requires discipline; it requires making time for moments of silence every day. Often it means waiting for the Lord to speak. Even amid the "busy-ness" and the stress of our daily lives, we need to make space for silence, because it is in silence that we find God, and in silence that we discover our true self. And in discovering our true self, we discover the particular vocation which God has given us for the building up of his Church and the redemption of our world.

Heart speaks unto heart. With these words from my heart, dear young friends, I assure you of my prayers for you, that your lives will bear abundant fruit for the growth of the civilization of love. I ask you also to pray for me, for my ministry as the Successor of Peter, and for the needs of the Church throughout the world. Upon you, your families and your friends, I cordially invoke God’s blessings of wisdom, joy and peace.

Amen, dear Papa! Thanks for saying it so eloquently. :)

Why does anyone care what the Catholic Church says?

We are Americans. We love our independence and our freedom, and we love to question (and sometimes reject) authority.

So, it seems odd to most Americans -- and dare I say, most American Catholics -- that anyone would submit to the authority of a Pope in Rome or a collection of bishops. But if you follow the logic, you'll see that it's not so crazy, from the Catholic point of view. Think about it:


If Jesus literally rose from the dead, then He is God, and I will submit to Him in all things.
If Jesus established a Church, then I will be a member of His Church.
If Jesus appointed leaders for His Church and delegated His teaching authority to those leaders, then I will submit to those leaders when they speak on matters of salvation, faith and morals.



Those are some big ifs, and I won't set about to prove any of them today. Obviously, many folks dispute one or all of them.

If any one of those ifs is untrue, then the Catholic Church is irrelevant and can be ignored.

But if they all are true, then we have just answered the question, "Why does anyone care what the Catholic Church says?"