How to Explain Papal Infallibility to an Evangelical

Sometimes when people ask questions about the Catholic faith we can struggle to know how to answer for some people it’s important to show them the rulings of the Pope and the councils or to quote Church fathers and Saints or other magisterial documents some people just don’t care about that kind of stuff and

They just want a logical or philosophical explanation and others want to know where our Catholic beliefs are found in the scripture how are we supposed to know the best way to share our faith in a given situation and that’s a big issue but I want to share a

Recent experience I had with someone who asked me about the Catholic teaching of the infallibility of the Pope I need to give you a little context to the conversation because this might help you think about your own responses when you find yourself in a similar situation the

Person I was speaking with is an Evangelical Christian who watches a lot of TV preachers and has what I would characterize as has a strong faith in Christ rooted in the mainstream Evangelical culture that connects Republican ideals with Christianity now this isn’t someone who’s interacting with church fathers or the reformers or

Deep theological arguments this person knows little about Catholicism other than the shallow narrative that is popular amongst the mainstream Left Behind Bible alone is Catholic Bashers that you might find on TV and we’ve been talking about some of the issues of the day that have been lightning rods for controversy things like transgenderism

Homosexuality marriage you know the light-hearted stuff and this person asked me what the pope believed about these things because what they had seen in the mainstream media LED them to the conclusion that the Catholic church was much more in line with the liberal culture than their understanding of

Conservative Christian ideals and when I began to clarify and explain what the church actually teaches about these things this person was especially surprised when I mentioned that Pope Francis had once referred to gender ideology as demonic I explained that it was usually not a good idea to take what

The media and even some Catholics say about the pope without looking into the actual sources and this led to a bigger question what do Catholics actually believe about papal infallibility I’m going to unpack this but first I want to talk about the kind of answer I chose to give this person

Because this person doesn’t have a framework of what the magisterium even is I I didn’t think it would be helpful to dig into the Vatican 1 documents that formerly defined papal infallibility I also didn’t want to go down the rabbit Trail into the writings of the church fathers we would get there eventually

But what I thought was important was to find a way to connect with the Catholic Church believes about papal infallibility to something this person already is familiar with and even believes as an Evangelical Christian but before I could do that I had had to First State what papal infallibility

Doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean the pope is perfect it doesn’t mean he never sins or makes a mistake it doesn’t even mean he has perfect personal beliefs about every issue it certainly doesn’t mean everything he says about every topic is correct judging by the confused look on

This person’s face I could tell this was helpful but I couldn’t just leave it at that it’s not enough to say what something isn’t when they are asking what it is so here’s how I chose to talk about about this I first asked this person what they believed about the

Bible do you believe the Bible is the inherent infallible word of God yes they explained I said great so does the Catholic church next I asked do you believe that the men who wrote the New Testament books were infallible this person answered no of course not well then how did they write

The word of God infallibly how can we trust that they didn’t make a mistake when they were communicating the truths of the Christian faith in these writing ings that the church determined should be included in the New Testament I just had to throw that in there I couldn’t

Help myself it wasn’t them but rather God speaking through them this person said okay now we’re getting somewhere I thought did God physically take over their body apart from their own will and move their hand to write the words no they said he inspired them to write by

The power of the Holy Spirit and protected them from error now did this mean that in everything they ever said and did this would be the case or only when God was using them to communicate the truths of the faith only in that context they said now I could have said

Well where’s that found in the Bible but I didn’t want to get off topic but it is a fair question what I did say was you are essentially defining what Catholicism teaches about papal infallibility in the same way you believe the Holy Spirit protected the biblical writers from errors in matters

Of faith we believe that protection remains on the pope who is the successor to St Peter who was given the keys to the kingdom by Jesus in Matthew 16 by connecting this explanation to something this person already believed in their faith a new understanding was reached see if I had just read the

Catechism or the Vatican 1 documents I think it would have made little sense because this person doesn’t have a framework that validates church councils and magisterial documents what happened next well we then had a heated conversation about Matthew 16 Apostolic succession and the Reformation I didn’t

Intend for it to go that far but maybe the Lord had other plans and I don’t know what will happen in the future but at the very least this person has a much better understanding of what the Catholics believe on this issue and I’d like to think that it doesn’t seem as

Far-fetched as they once thought and for me hey that’s progress now you might be listening or watching and have already come up with 10 Things I Should Have Said differently or mistakes that I’ve made I’m still working on all this and I’m learning all the time but the

Principle I want to share is that it’s so important when explaining our faith to people that we scratch where they’re itching see people are different and there is rarely a one-sized fits-all method to explaining our faith we have to understand not just the different answers and arguments but the different

Types of answers and arguments so that we can connect people with those that will be the most effective and helpful not only that but we must be led by the Holy Spirit and walk in wisdom humility and charity if we do I’m confident God will use us to share our faith and help

People to see the truth of his church what are some other examples you can think of that are helpful ways to connect answers to objections about the Catholic faith with things that non-catholics already believe I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments but before you go I’d also like to share

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