Infallibility has a start and an end ?

[Externet]

What happens when a priest becomes pope obtaining infallibility ?   Was fallible before elected ?  If retires and quits, becomes fallible again ?

[Phi for All]

As I understand it, a pope can only make infallible statements about church doctrine while holding office. It's not like everything they say is without error once they become pope.

[exchemist]

23 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

As I understand it, a pope can only make infallible statements about church doctrine while holding office. It's not like everything they say is without error once they become pope.

Yes it is only ex cathedra pronouncements on faith and morals. Most popes are very sparing indeed in their use of this. 
 

I think I recall this dodgy (and risky) doctrine was only formalised in the c.19th, at a time when the church was going through a phase of dogmatic absolutism.

[geordief]

Trump also has his own secular  infallibility  doctrine.

 

He makes "perfect" phone calls when they seem to an outsider to be anything but.

He is also able to declassify documents by the power of thought.

 

Perhaps they might give him the job in the Vatican and he can blow smoke up their arses when the  election result is announced by his cronies

 

 

Edited April 22, 2023 by geordief

[exchemist]

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Trump also has his own secular  infallibility  doctrine.

 

He makes "perfect" phone calls when they seem to an outsider to be anything but.

He is also able to declassify documents by the power of thought.

 

Perhaps they might give him the job in the Vatican and he can blow smoke up their arses when the  election result is announced by his cronies

 

 

I don’t think the Vatican, for all its faults, would want to have anything to with Trump. The guy seems to be actually evil.