We all have a version of the Catholicism in our brains; this version is each person’s own fallible partially-incorrect partially-incomplete understanding of the Catholic Christian Faith. This Faith includes mysteries beyond complete human comprehension; mysteries can only be partially understood, which is apprehension not comprehension. Then, what can be known of this Faith in this life by fallen sinners is nevertheless a vast body of knowledge and understanding. You could study this body of truth at the feet of all the Popes and Bishops and Saints for a hundred years, and still not know it all, and still not correctly understand all its complexities and the interrelation between every point of doctrine and discipline.

The Catholic Faith is like a vast forest, with a seemingly infinite variety of flora and fauna, of features and intricacies. If you walk in that forest every day of your life, you will always discover things that you did not know before.

We know that the Fathers, Doctors, Saints have each not fully understood that portion of the Faith that they expressed in writing. The Summa Theologica contains some errors, noted by comparison with the 700 years of magisterial teaching between then and now. Popes have sometimes erred in their theological opinions, such as when Pope John XXII, speaking in a sermon based on the commentary of Saint Augustine on Psalm 90, opined that perhaps the faithful do not receive the Beatific Vision of God until the general Resurrection. This wrong opinion by Augustine, repeated by John 22, was corrected by John some months later. In addition, the successor of John, who was Pope Benedict XII, infallibly defined that all the faithful have the Beatific Vision of God as soon as they enter Heaven.

So if Popes, Fathers, Doctors, and Saints can err in their understanding of the Faith, SO CAN WE.

The version of Catholicism in your brain, in your mind and heart, is not infallible. As we are each fallen sinners, that version certainly contains deficiencies and outright errors — some small and some great. And when we fallen sinners join with other likeminded fallen sinners, in person or online, that group can share some of the same misunderstandings and inadequacies. So we cannot claim that our understanding on one particular point must be correct, as so many persons who think about the Faith in the very same way that we do also agree. There are many flies on the flypaper. There is no safety in the mere number of fallen sinners who agree on any question.

Now it is acceptable to the Church for each member to have their own pious beliefs and theological opinions, which are not in contradiction to the teaching of the Church. Then there is some limited ability by the faithful to disagree with a non-infallible decision on doctrine or discipline, without sin. To whatever extent a non-infallible decision might possibly err, we can possibly disagree. However, the Magisterium cannot be habitually wrong nor err gravely, even in what is non-infallible. The Church is indefectible, and so cannot go astray or lead astray, and the Roman Pontiff has the charism of truth and never-failing faith. The body of Bishops shares in this indefectibility and this charism of truth and never-failing faith, only when they teach as a body with the Roman Pontiff. Individual Bishops or small groups of Bishops can err to any extent. The Roman Pontiff cannot err to any extent.

What is happening today in the Church is that every individual Catholic and various groups of Catholics, often organized around a shared point of view on religion, are comparing whatever the Pope and the Bishops decide to the version of Catholicism in their brain. If the Pope or Bishops depart from that version, they are said to be in error. When a group of Catholics shares a version of the faith, and the Pope speaks or acts contrary to that version, they are wrong to judge the Pope on that basis. We must accept as an article of faith that the Pope and the Bishops have the help of God in decisions of doctrine and discipline, and that non-infallible decision can only err to a limited extent. We must accept correction or emendation to our own version of Catholicism in our brains, as we know that we are fallen sinners who can err to any extent in the Faith.

When some persons complain that Pope Francis has contradicted infallible Tradition, they refer to the version of Tradition in their brains, to the version of Tradition held by a group of Catholics who share a particular point of view on the faith. But such a version of Tradition is subject to the errors of fallen sinners, individually and as a group. So it is not correct to claim that the Pope necessarily errs when he contradicts your understanding of Tradition. For there is a difference between Tradition itself and your fallible understanding of infallible Tradition. You cannot hold the Pope to the fallible version of Tradition and Scripture in your own understanding, or the understanding of a group of Catholics. The Magisterium is the sole authoritative interpreter of Tradition and Scripture. By many Catholics and groups of Catholics today speak and act as if they had all authority over Tradition and Scripture, to decide what is and is not truly of the Faith. Then they rail against the Pope or Vatican II for contradicting their own non-authoritative, highly fallible understanding or misunderstanding of Tradition or Scripture.

We must not be filled with pride in our own version of the Faith. Instead, we must be humble and faithful before Jesus Christ AND the Church He founded, of which He is still the eternal Head. The version of the Faith in each of our brains certainly contains deficiencies and errors, so we must accept the authority of the Church and the likely possibility that even non-infallible decisions of the Pope are correct to a degree beyond our complete comprehension.

Ronald L Conte Jr