Benedict’s Book and Infallibility
The pope did not intend his book to be magisterial. He wanted to demonstrate how to read the gospels with great depth and still remain orthodox. He saw the two modern errors of liberalism and fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is an unquestioning discipline that is afraid of critical analysis. The concept is that if you have faith you won’t ask hard questions. That makes faith defeat reason. The other side of the coin is the undisciplined questioning of liberalism. Where critical analysis deconstructs the scripture to the point where the big picture gets confused and ends up being reconstructed according to the scholar’s own opinion. His focus is on countering liberalism but he is taking great pains not to drift into fundamentalism because he wants to engage liberals in debate. He understands and even values what they have done but wants to provide a corrective. That is why he invites people to disagree with him. Most liberals, even Catholic ones, don’t accept something just because the pope says so. Even if they did they would still need to understand the rational basis for it. Scholarship works best when everyone feels free to voice their objections to your ideas. That is what he is looking for. This is a process theologians know and respect. The pope wants them to arrive at the right position. Subjecting his ideas to academic scrutiny is the most likely way to get them there. He knows the truth of gospels can stand up to critical analysis. In other words, he is not a fundamentalist.
But just because Pope Benedict tries to minimize the authority of this book does not mean it doesn’t have any. He is still the pope. He does make some strong statements not only about the fact that certain doctrines are false but also that they have caused serious problems in the church. It is hard for me to see how he could not be acting in his role as shepherd of the church. Even if he tries to avoid it, a pope cannot address these heresies head on and have the grace and power of his office not be attached. Not every word of it is going to be infallible but some of the more definitive statements really should be. For most of the ideas that condemned it is possible to find some infallible statements and one you argue they were already infallibly condemned. Still when a pope directly addresses a particular heresy and demonstrates how it is unbiblical that should make it harder for people to hold or defend such positions.
I know it is easy to paint all liberals with a broad brush and say they don’t care at all how strongly the church has come out against their doctrine. That is not really true. It is a lot harder for a school or a priest to teach something when layman can easily read that the pope thinks this idea obscures Jesus and makes him less than God. These are very blunt and devastating criticisms. They are very easy to quote in a letter to the bishop.
