Dear Matt:

The Pope is not infallible in every utterance he makes. Infallibility takes place only in certain very limited cases involving only the subjects of faith and morals.

If the Pope were to say that 1 + 1 = 43 he would be wrong, but making such a statement is not about faith and morals; in this case, the statement is about mathematics.

The only time the Pope is infallible is when the following three conditions are present (and all three must be present):

1) the Pope explicitly intends to make an infallible teaching ex cathedra -- as an exercise of his office as the universal pastor and teacher and by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority;

(The Bishops of the world as a whole in Council, when in union with the Pope, may also proclaim an infallible teaching; items #2 and #3 below still required.)

2) the teaching must apply to the whole Church and not only to certain portions of the Church;

3) the teaching must be on the subjects of faith and morals.

Thus a Pope can make all sorts of mistakes in judgment about any particular topic, or even make mistakes in pastoral judgment or even in theology in general, but when speaking ex cathedra the Holy Spirit protects the Pope from making any error. If this were not so, then we would have chaos in not knowing for sure what teachings are absolutely true and which are not.

The "mistakes" that anti-Catholics like to point out in Papal history are not issues that pertain to infallibility. Thus the dogma of infallibility is not challenged by the fact of those mistakes.

In addition, the charism of infallibility has nothing to do with "impeccability". Several Popes were corrupt and serious sinners. For example, there were a few Popes who fornicated, but never once did they proclaim that fornication was okay.

All men are sinners, including Popes. In fact, our current Pope goes to confession on a weekly basis to confess his sins.

For additional information see Article on Papal Infallibility

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary