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Question: Has the Catholic Church ever made a proclamation ex cathedra (as in, one which it declares is infallible) that it later retracted?

This could literally be any form of the following:

  • Some statement X was made, intended to be infallible
  • Later, X was retracted/reformulated/revised by a subsequent "infallible" statement, illustrating that the previous statement was obviously not infallible

Background: I was recently shown the site Catholics Come Home and was perusing their top ten reasons to "come home," which featured this:

This [Catholic] Church has been guided by the Holy Spirit and protected from teaching error on issues of faith and morals from generation to generation for some two thousand years, as Our Lord Jesus promised: (foretold Isaiah 22:15-25) Matt 16:13-20; Matthew 18:15-18 (in this verse the word is church, not community); 1 Tim 3:15.

While the phrase above seems bold, I have the feeling its meaning applies only to statements made ex cathedra (from the chair), i.e. those statements made explicitly as infallible by the Pope. For background, the Church's stance on papal infallibility only applies to faith and morals (hence I'm thinking the above quote is only referring to those instances):

To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #891)

For a short list of times this actually happened see Wikipedia’s list of infallible declarations.

I found some people asking this question on Catholic Answers Forum, most notably this list (link dead), extracted from a recommended book on the matter, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.

Laurel
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Hendy
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  • This is not answerable, because faith and morals are totally subjective. There cannot be an objective answer. – Sklivvz Jul 14 '11 at 20:29
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    @Skliwz: I mostly agree, but not entirely. There may be examples of infallibly declared statements that interact with testable reality, but I'm just not aware of them. As an example, imagine that it was deemed (infallibly) that homosexuality is a sin or that women can never be priests... and then this was changed. Obviously that could refute the claim. I'm interested if some case like this exists, any sort of "retraction" or "updating" that says something different than a previously-existing statement. – Hendy Jul 14 '11 at 20:32
  • I wouldn't close this as off-topic; Catholics I have argued with in the past are convinced that they are the creators and arbiters of science, and so would claim that this assertion of their should be considered part of scientific reality. – mmr Jul 14 '11 at 20:46
  • @mmr: no, the question is about matters of "faith and morals". Both of these can be argued forever. Were the crusades "moral"? They may be not moral for most of us now, but certainly for them at the time. Is homosexuality immoral? Depends on when/where/who you ask... – Sklivvz Jul 14 '11 at 20:57
  • @Slivvz: have a look at the edit and see if that helps at all. Don't get hung up on the words "faith and morals" -- focus on the fact that the Church can declare, "What I'm about to say will be infallible: blah blah" and that I want to know if such a statement has ever been uttered and later retracted or can be shown falacious. – Hendy Jul 14 '11 at 21:28
  • @hen even after your update we are still wildly in the realms of mere philosophy/theology. How can you prove that god is the ultimate cause of itself if you can't even prove or disprove (or define!) god itself? – Sklivvz Jul 14 '11 at 21:31
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    @Slivvz: good point..., but I'm only making illustrative examples, which you seem to be attacking to a bloody pulp. All I'm trying to point out is that it's *plausible* that the Church has said *something* it intended to be infallible which *could be* later disproven or retracted... and I want to know if such a thing exists. – Hendy Jul 14 '11 at 21:33
  • @Slivvz: edited once again to make things so general that any answer matching the outline could work. – Hendy Jul 14 '11 at 21:37
  • Yeah, this should be reopened, I don't think they closers know what you're getting at and the edit was a good one. We Catholics make a claim that the pope has never erred when speaking specifically Ex. Cathedra, an instance of erring would be a retraction (i.e. turning heterodox teaching into orthodox teaching). That's what has never happened, popes have been chosen for specifically this purpose, but failed when it came time to make the proclamation. (I'd give examples if this were an open question, I don't expect anyone to believe me) – Peter Turner Jul 14 '11 at 21:52
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    If your question is: has the Church ever admitted an error in an ex-cathedra infallible declaration of the Pope, then your question should say so clearly - which it doesn't - and without the philosophical parts. As is it's completely philosophical. We also have a philosophy site, you should ask this question there. – Sklivvz Jul 15 '11 at 00:26
  • Is my edit keeping in the spirit of the question? I would be tempted to remove the background or edit it more, but didn't want to take away the full claim. – Larian LeQuella Jul 15 '11 at 03:08
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    How many ex cathedra proclamations were actually made? I recently read that there were only a handful in all the history of the church. [Like, two](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility#Instances_of_papal_infallibility). Both of which are completely untestable. – Konrad Rudolph Jul 15 '11 at 09:10
  • @kon: Of course they are untestable. The Church only makes these proclamation on matters of faith (which means matters that can **only be addressed via faith**). The question though has been changed to whether the Church ever retracted or contradicted any of these--which is testable :-) – Sklivvz Jul 15 '11 at 09:51
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    @Sklivvz “matters of faith” does not preclude testability. This is a common claim but it’s simply false, and is only sustained by shifting the goalpost. – Konrad Rudolph Jul 15 '11 at 10:45
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    questions about religion are **off-topic**. doesn't matter if it's testable or not. – vartec Jul 15 '11 at 11:51
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    meta question here: http://meta.skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/991/why-arent-question-about-religion-closed-as-off-topic – Sklivvz Jul 15 '11 at 13:26
  • I thought the doctrine of papal infallibility was only formulated in Vatican 1 (roughly 1871) so it doesn't exactly cover a lot of church history. – matt_black Dec 01 '12 at 18:24

2 Answers2

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No clear case known

  • Some statement X was made, intended to be infallible
  • Later, 1) evidence has shown X to be false or 2) X was retracted/reformulated/revised by a subsequent statement, illustrating that the previous statement was obviously not infallible

It is not possible to find a simple contraction like this, because the statement is mostly not marked as "infallible" when made, its infallibility is only derived from context. There are only two statements made by a pope which are not disputed regarding their "ex cathedra" status, and those are two recent dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (1854) and the Assumption (1950). See Instances of papal infallibility in Wikipedia.

With any other statement which you may think that it was made ex-cathedra in its time and can be shown as not held any more, or not true, the proponents of the papal infallibility faith will claim it was not made "ex cathedra" at all.

I will try to search for some particular case which could could be used to demonstrate this, but as it is time consuming, I have no idea now when I will be able to do it.

What is ex-cathedra

The currently used definition comes from First Vatican Council (1869-1870):

"When the Roman Pontiff speaks ex cathedra...as the pastor and teacher of all Christians [and] defines a doctrine of faith and morals that must be held by the Universal Church, he is empowered, through the divine assistance promised him in blessed Peter, with the infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed to endow his Church."(24)

A trouble is there is not a clear consensus between catholics regarding how to recognize when a statement is made Ex cathedra, therefore it may easily happen a statement which might had been considered as ex cathedra at the time it was issued is classified as an ordinary statement later. See e.g. Encyclical entry in the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:

it is generally admitted that the mere fact that the pope should have given to any of his utterances the form of an encyclical does not necessarily constitute it an ex-cathedra pronouncement and invest it with infallible authority. The degree in which the infallible magisterium of the Holy See is committed must be judged from the circumstances, and from the language used in the particular case.

The guide how you can distinguish an "infallible statement" nowadays, as accepted by the Catholic Church is as follows:

  • "the Roman Pontiff"
  • "speaks ex cathedra" ("that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority….")
  • "he defines"
  • "that a doctrine concerning faith or morals"
  • "must be held by the whole Church" (Pastor Aeternus, chap. 4)

And there are similiar rules for "infallible council teaching":

  • a verbal formula indicating that this teaching is definitive (such as "We declare, decree and define..."), or
  • an accompanying anathema stating that anyone who deliberately dissents is outside the Catholic Church.

However, there is a caveat: there is no guarantee the guide will not change in the future, as it has never been rigorously formulated by an "infallible" authority.

Laurel
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Suma
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  • Open to this answer... but if only two have ever been made, why does [WIKI](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility#Instances_of_papal_infallibility) list seven, and why does [THIS](http://forums.catholic.com/showpost.php?p=2928324&postcount=4) guy think that [THIS](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0895550091/?tag=stackoverfl08-20) book lists at least 49 instances? – Hendy Jul 15 '11 at 14:58
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    @Hendy: because you're mixing two completely different things. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_dogma – vartec Jul 15 '11 at 15:27
  • @vartec: good point. I guess I did intend for the question to look at any infallible statement, and this would include those statements from the magisterium, not just from the pope... so it's my own damn fault. Fail. – Hendy Jul 15 '11 at 15:43
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    I do not claim two were ever made, I write there are only two which are undisputed. Some sources claim more, some less, but these two are never disputed. Furthermore, "dogma" is not the same as "pope speaking ex-cathedra" - many dogmas were formulated by councils. To make things more confusing, while ex-cathedra is mostly used for pope infallibility only, some sources use it for council infallibility as well (see e.g http://www.ewtn.com/library/curia/mdpd.htm for extended discussion). – Suma Jul 15 '11 at 16:12
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    @Suma: agreed. Both papal infallibility and "council" infallibility (proclamations by the magisterium) count as infallible. I was hoping for both, but realize the question only asks about papal forms... – Hendy Jul 15 '11 at 18:27
  • Reading the first part of the question as it is now, I think it is now concerned about all "ex cathedra/infallible" statements, not only from a pope. I will try to adjust the answer. – Suma Jul 15 '11 at 19:25
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    ... It sounds very much like Ex Cathedra infallibility is being No True Scotsman'd -- "Ex Cathedra statements are never wrong or retracted; if a statement was retracted then it wasn't properly Ex Cathedra to begin with" – Shadur Mar 13 '17 at 08:06
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    @Shadur: that is close to what happened to [Pope Honorius I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Honorius_I) who wrote to [Patriarch Sergius I of Constantinople](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergius_I_of_Constantinople) with a doctrine that was later condemned, thus demonstrating that he could not have made an *ex cathedra* statement. This then got distorted into saying he had not made any statement at all but had negligently failed to prevent others promoting a false doctrine – Henry Jun 20 '19 at 23:01
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In addition to the points raised by the other answer, the quote you provided is also seemingly historically inaccurate:

This [Catholic] Church has been guided by the Holy Spirit and protected from teaching error on issues of faith and morals from generation to generation for some two thousand years, as Our Lord Jesus promised: (foretold Isaiah 22:15-25) Matt 16:13-20; Matthew 18:15-18 (in this verse the word is church, not community); 1 Tim 3:15.

However, the infallibility of the Pope was only formally defined in 1870

Laurel
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user5341
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