Pope of Rome to Step Down

[DubaiSis]

Originally Posted by Gusteau

I get what you're going for, but I think it's a bit narrow. It reminds me of when we look at the Bid Day Pictures thread and say how "diverse" groups are when their chapters have two or three women of color. Diversity encompasses much more than that, and quite frankly a person of color in the papacy will not likely mean much change in inclusivity in the Church. It's one of many factors, and I wouldn't be a "one issue voter" on that one.

The difference in the diversity you mention and diversity in the Catholic church is Catholics as a group are not Western European and haven't been for a very long time. Catholicism is biggest where education is smallest, and currently that's Africa.

And my understanding of the infallibility of the pope is that never in history before JPII did any pope EVER admit to being ill because the pope, being infallible, can't get sick. So he's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's dead. I will gladly surrender that belief if I was told wrong. It is just one of very many things that made me throw religion in general and Catholicism in particular in the same pile with the tooth fairy and the Easter Bunny.

[HQWest]

But look at it this way - he gets to help pick his successor, which arguably no pope has really had control over in 600 years.

[MysticCat]

Originally Posted by DubaiSis

And my understanding of the infallibility of the pope is that never in history before JPII did any pope EVER admit to being ill because the pope, being infallible, can't get sick. So he's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's dead. I will gladly surrender that belief if I was told wrong.

I'm afraid you were told wrong. That sounds like the mixed-up idea of some overly pious (and superstitious) Catholic or of some virulently anti-Catholic Protestant. Either way, it's wrong. Infallible means trustworthy or without error.

Per Benedict XVI: "The Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know."

And per John XXIII: "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible."

FWIW, I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm Presbyterian, not Catholic, and I don't accept the doctrines of the Petrine primacy or of papal infallibility. That said, I have a great deal of respect for the Bishop of Rome -- both the office and the holder of that office -- and the ministry of unity he can exercise.