Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.: Most of What the Pope Says and Does is Fallible

The pope, in almost everything he says and does, is fallible.

There. I said it. I said what many people have been itching to say. The pope is fallible. And saying this as a Catholic does not make me a dissenter. My position is as orthodox as they come.

I recall that in my (pre-Vatican II) Catholic grade school, the nuns taught us: “The pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals. He is not infallible when he predicts who is going to win the World Series.”

This should not be controversial. Nothing in Catholic teaching, before or after Vatican II, or Vatican I, for that matter, requires Catholics to believe that the pope can do no wrong. Papal infallibility is limited to a very specific set of circumstances. In fact, the pope has clearly spoken ex cathedra only twice, in defining the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and of the Assumption of Mary in 1950….continued….

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