The Assumption Of Mary Isn't Just Absent In The Earliest Sources

People often underestimate the evidence against an assumption of Mary and the evidence against the idea that her assumption is an apostolic tradition always held by the church. While it's true that the concept of an assumption of Mary is absent in the earliest generations of church history, the evidence against the concept goes far beyond that. See my posts here and here about how often the Biblical and extrabiblical sources discuss a wide range of topics relevant to an assumption of Mary, mentioning many individuals other than Mary in the process, without saying anything about an assumption that Mary experienced. Here's a post that discusses other contexts, like ancient Christian artwork, in which an assumption of Mary or other relevant events (e.g., her being raised from the dead) could have been included, but weren't. Again, keep in mind that many people other than Mary are included in such contexts, even though Mary isn't. There's also the fact that some patristic and medieval sources either expressed agnosticism about whether Mary was assumed (see here and here) or denied that she was assumed (see here and here). And here's a post about a medieval Pope who referred to belief in Mary's assumption as optional. On the problems with appealing to doctrinal development in support of an assumption of Mary, see here.

You can find many other posts with relevant material in our archives. See the list of posts under the Assumption of Mary label here, for example.

Good thing the infallible Pope is able to correct the mistakes of the former infallible Pope so Catholics can be certain of their traditions

 Pope Francis abrogates Pope Benedict's universal permission for Old Mass

“Previous norms, instructions, permissions, and customs that do not conform to the provisions of the present Motu Proprio are abrogated.”

I stand along with the Traditionalists in faith that sometime in the next thousand years a Pope will instruct us that Pope Francis is abrogated, so you can go ahead and get the jump on that future proclamation by ignoring Pope Francis now.  Imagine being a Protestant and not having such certainty.  I shudder to think.

Strengthen your brothers

Luke 22:31-32 records Jesus telling Peter "Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, strengthen your brethren". The original Greek in the passage shows that Satan demanded to sift "you", or all of the apostles, but Jesus prayed specifically for Peter and his faith not to fail. 

Jesus singles out Peter and prays for him so that his faith may not fail and he would strengthen his brethren (Lk 22:31-32). Peter will be a leader, but one who serves others instead of being served. Trent Horn, The Case for Catholicism (Ignatius 2017).

1. To begin with, this passage says nothing about the papacy or the pope strengthening the Roman episcopate. It's not a promise to the papacy. It's not a general promise. It's very topical. 

2. Peter is singled out, not because he outranks the other disciples, but because he will betray Jesus. The prayer anticipates his denial. Jesus prays for Peter's restoration in advance of his betrayal.

3. As a matter of faith, Peter's faith did fail. He lost his nerve and publicly renounced Jesus. That's a paradigmatic act of infidelity. 

In context, the meaning of the statement is not that his faith will be unwavering, but that his failure won't be permanent. Jesus prays that Peter won't abandon the cause. Having betrayed Jesus, he will repent of his betrayal and renew his commitment. 

4. The text doesn't say how Peter will strengthen his fellow. The most immediate explanation, in context, is that the example of Peter's restoration will strengthen the other disciples. The source of encouragement is not something Peter will do, but something Jesus did for Peter. If even Peter can be forgiven and restored, after publicly disowning Jesus, that's an encouragement to the other disciples, as they face persecution in the years ahead. Indeed, one reason Jesus tells Peter, in the presence of the other disciples, that he has prayed for him, is so that when Peter is contrite and rejoins the movement, that outcome will be attributed to the prescient and efficacious intercession of Jesus rather than Peter's fortitude naturally rebounding. 

5. Finally, there's the fallacy of inferring that if Peter is said to strengthen the other disciples, this carries the implication that the other disciples won't strengthen each other. Catholic apologists act as though statements like this imply a contrast, where affirming something in reference to one person disaffirms the same thing in reference to anyone else. But the statement is not logically exclusive, as if only Peter can play that role. What makes Peter special in this passage is not his leadership but his failure of leadership. He buckled under pressure and set bad example. The proleptic prayer of Christ is to rectify Peter's dereliction, not to promote him.  

The ring of power

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBMiyEzOJmI

RadTrads obsess over Vatican II. They wish to see it repealed. Yet the deeper problem for RadTrads (indeed, for Catholicism generally) isn't Vatican II but Vatican I. That's what gave the papacy an ace in the hole. It represents the culmination of a centuries' old turf war between conciliarism and ultramontanism. When Pius IX succeeded in arm-twisting his bishops into decreeing papal infallibility, it was like God got tired of running the universe and created a regent, whom he gave the ring of power, with the power to annihilate the world, including God, on condition that the regent not abuse his authority. The regent promised not to abuse his authority, but having given the regent the ring of power, God couldn't take it back. The regent could break his promise at any time with impunity. 

There's really no limit on what a pope can do. To be sure, he can act in a way that falsifies Catholicism. Vatican I is a ticking timebomb. 

Temporary infallibility

I agree with Weishaupt that the exclusion of women from priestly ordination was declared infallibly by Pope St. John Paul II in Ordinatio sacerdotalis (1994), that such a ruling must be definitively held by all the faithful as a “secondary object of infallibility” 

https://canonlawblog.wordpress.com/2019/10/01/brief-note-on-canonist-weishaupts-essay/

In light of Rome's doctrine of development, Catholic theology needs a new category: temporary infallibility. Dogma is temporarily infallible until the next pope whips out his eraser. 

Six stages of Catholic denial

1. The church of Rome is the Bride of Christ. Without the Roman Magisterium, we'd be lost in the wilderness, forced to fend for ourselves. 

2. The church of Rome can't be falsified by what the priesthood, hierarchy, or pope does, but only by what's officially taught.

3. The church of Rome can't be falsified by what the pope happens to say, but only when speaking ex cathedra. All else is fallible. 

4. The church of Rome can't be falsified by heretical teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church because that's fallible.

5. The church of Rome can't be falsified by heretical conciliar teaching because that just shows the council wasn't ecumenical. Even if a pope solemnly defined a heresy as irreformable doctrine, that can't falsify the church of Rome. A heretical pope is an antipope, not a true pope. Ex cathedra heresy is a contradiction in terms. So nothing in principle or practice, nothing in history, nothing on paper, can falsify the church of Rome.

6. Dogma is our benchmark to sift de fide teaching from fallible or heretical teaching. We rely on magisterial teaching to know what's dogma and we rely on dogma to know what's magisterial teaching. The church of Rome is the One True Church® because it says it's the One True Church®. The Roman Catholic church is always right–except when it's wrong. And you can tell the difference by using dogma to winnow the Magisterium while simultaneously using the Magisterium to winnow dogma. Dogma is the starting-point. Unless the Magisterium is the starting-point. When in doubt, flip a coin of St. Jude. 

“Catholic Converts”: Come Back Home to Genuine (Protestant) Christianity

C.S. Lewis gave this reason for why he never became a Roman Catholic:

“The real reason why I cannot be in communion with you [Catholics] is not my disagreement with this or that Roman doctrine, but that to accept your Church means, not to accept a given body of doctrine, but to accept in advance any doctrine your Church hereafter produces. It is like being asked to agree not only to what a man has said but also to what he is going to say.” From “Christian Reunion”, in Christian Reunion and Other Essays, edited by Walter Hooper, London: Collins, 1990, p. 17-18.

This statement becomes more of a fulfilled prophecy all the time, especially as we begin to see the fruit of the “Pope Francis” papacy.

Now that conservative Roman Catholics (and the ones we know are mostly the converts from Protestantism) are lamenting, in fact, holding conferences, to “Address the Crisis of Confusion in the Church”. Here is one announcement by the milquetoast “National Catholic Register”:

Fact-Checking “Francis”, the Fallible Pope

“Who said ‘popes are infallible’?”

Francis likes his talk freewheeling, with all the risks that go with it. Here is a review of his latest blunders, a dozen in four months. The most sensational with China....by Sandro Magister:

So Many Errors, Your Holiness. And Some Marked With Red.

Of course, popes are “infallible” “under certain conditions”, and in fact, no one has ever defined what those “certain conditions” are, nor what “ex cathedra” truly means. According to Brian Tierney:

Since Vatican Council I Catholic theologians have felt obliged to defend some form of papal infallibility. Real infallibility has regrettable implications. In the years since 1870, therefore, theologians have devoted much ingenuity to devising a sort of pseudo-infallibility for the pope, a kind of Pickwickian infallibility.

Their usual technique has been to raise endless, teasing, really unanswerable questions about the meaning of the term ex cathedra as used in the decree of Vatican Council I and about the phrases “ordinary magisterium” and “extraordinary magisterium” that came to be associated with it in discussions on papal infallibility.

Already in 1874, Gladstone could write, “… There is no established or accepted definition of the phrase ex cathedra and (the Catholic) has no power to obtain one, and no guide to direct him in his choice among some twelve theories on the subject, which, it is said, are bandied to and fro among Roman theologians, except the despised and discarded agencies of his private judgment.

Things have not improved since. To be sure, modern apologists often insist that the conditions needed to guarantee the infallibility of a papal pronouncement were set out, once and for all, simply and clearly, in the decree of Vatican Council I. But then they find it impossible to agree as to which particular papal pronouncements actually satisfy these supposedly simple and clear requirements (Brian Tierney, “Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350”, A Study on the Concepts of Infallibility, Sovereignty and Tradition in the Middle Ages”, Netherlands, E.J. Brill [Originally published in 1972, with new postscript (1988)], pg. 3)

For further reading:

Hans Küng to “Pope Francis”: “Re-open discussion on ‘Infallibility’”.

“Papal Infallibility” dogma to be up for open discussion.

"Papal Infallibility" to be up for discussion

http://ncronline.org/news/theology/fr-hans-kung-says-francis-responded-request-free-discussion-infallibility-dogma

Hans Küng to “Pope Francis”: “Re-open discussion on ‘Infallibility’”

The renegade Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng has made an urgent appeal (urgent given that he is 88 years old) to his little buddy Bergoglio, a.k.a., “Pope Francis”, to “re-open the discussion on ‘Infallibility’”.

Küng notes, “I have spared no effort to collect the relevant texts, order them factually and chronologically according to the various phases of the altercation and elucidate them by putting them in a biographical context for Volume 5 of my complete works.” Much of what I took from this link was from Küng’s “Infallible? An Inquiry”.

“Receive this comprehensive documentation and allow a free, unprejudiced and open-ended discussion in our church of the all the unresolved and suppressed questions connected with the infallibility dogma. In this way, the problematic Vatican heritage of the past 150 years could be come to terms with honestly and adjusted in accordance with holy Scripture and ecumenical tradition. It is not a case of trivial relativism that undermines the ethical foundation of church and society. But it is also not about an unmerciful, mind-numbing dogmatism, which swears by the letter, prevents thorough renewal of the church’s life and teaching, and obstructs serious progress in ecumenism. It is certainly not the case of me personally wanting to be right. The well-being of the church and of ecumenism is at stake.

“I am very well aware of the fact that my appeal to you, who ‘lives among wolves,’ as a good Vatican connoisseur recently remarked, may possibly not be opportune. In your Christmas address of Dec. 21, 2015, however, confronted with curial ailments and even scandals, you confirmed your will for reform: ‘It seems necessary to state what has been — and ever shall be — the object of sincere reflection and decisive provisions. The reform will move forward with determination, clarity and firm resolve, since Ecclesia semper reformanda.’

“I would not like to raise the hopes of many in our church unrealistically. The question of infallibility cannot be solved overnight in our church. Fortunately, you (Pope Francis) are almost 10 years younger than I am and will hopefully survive me. You will, moreover, surely understand that as a theologian at the end of his days, buoyed by deep affection for you and your pastoral work, I wanted to convey this request to you in time for a free and serious discussion of infallibility that is well-substantiated in the volume at hand: non in destructionem, sed in aedificationem ecclesiae, ‘not in order to destroy but to build up the church.’ For me personally, this would be the fulfillment of a hope I have never given up.”

It will be interesting to see how he expands on what he has already written about “Papal Infallibility”. Küng says he is not writing to destroy, but if ever there was a need for destruction, it is here. Wrong-headed from the start, both “papal infallibility” and “the papacy” both need to be headed toward “the ash-heap of history”. If anyone can muddy the waters right now (further than they have been muddied), it will be “Pope Francis”.

I should note that much of what Küng says is for the purpose of admitting things that Reformed believers would never admit to. On the other hand, Küng is someone of whom Steve has said, “knows where all the bodies are buried”. And of course, “Pope Francis” and Hans Küng are not far apart in many respects. Note the respect that “Pope Francis” has for Küng’s former assistant, Walter Cardinal Kasper, who today has most recently been instigating for a “pastoral” way to re-admit divorced-and-remarried Roman Catholics to communion.

This instigation for a new discussion of “Papal ‘Infallibility’” should prove interesting to say the least.

SCOTUS and Pontifex

A number of critics have rightly objected to the way in which the Supreme Court arbitrarily interprets the Constitution. There is, however, a striking parallel between the Supreme Court and the Roman Magisterium. Ironically, some Catholic apologists even draw that parallel (e.g. Jonathan Prejean).

There are Catholic apologists who say an infallible book demands an infallible interpreter. Put another way, they make it a question of who's the "final interpretive authority."

And that's exactly how the Supreme Court operates. Mind you, the Constitution doesn't say the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the Constitution means. But that's how American jurisprudence has developed. 

And we see the results. On that view, the Constitution ultimately means whatever the Supreme Court says it means. The Constitution has no fixed meaning. That's how justices can conjure up a Constitutional right to abortion or a Constitutional right to homosexual marriage out of thin air. 

By contrast, conservative legal scholars approach the text of the Constitution in much the same way as conservative Bible scholars. The meaning of the Constitution is determined by what the words meant at the time it was written or amended–as well as taking the historical context into account. Original intent. Legislative intent. The Federalist papers. The minutes of the Constitutional convention. And so forth.

Likewise, although the Fourth Amendment couldn't envision modern surveillance technologies, it lays down an enduring principle. 

The Supreme Court has the same mindset as the Roman Magisterium. And we see the catastrophic results. 

How “Pope Liberius” (352 AD – 366 AD) adopted, but “did not teach ex cathedra”, Arianism, thus rescuing “papal infallibility”

Liberius is the second most notorious “pope”, whose adoption of heresy Rome had to deal with while trying to wriggle out some form of “infallibility” (following Honorius, 625-638).

This question came in an email: “I wonder if you might point me to some scholarly materials on pope Liberius. I know that it is standard Protestant apologetic to argue against the papacy by pointing out that this pope succumbed to Arian pressure. Of course the standard Catholic reply is that those materials are forgeries. If you have some time would you mind recommending some sources?”

Johnann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger, who was a Roman Catholic historian prior to Vatican I (and who argued strenuously against “Infallibility”), described it this way:

The Fictional Beginnings of Papal Infallibility, Part 1

It is no stretch at all to call this fictional. The concept of “papal infallibility”, the foundation of the Roman Catholic IP, the epistemological foundation of certitude for a narrow band of Roman Catholics, never existed for the first 1200 years of church history.

Michael Liccione wrote of “papal ratifications of dogmatic canons issued by general councils meant to bind the whole Church”. Of these he says:

Whether purely papal or conciliar, such definitions are exercises of the “extraordinary magisterium” of the Church, and thus require the assent of faith from all believers. All are set forth infallibly.

Of course, it’s not like “popes” had called these councils, or were leading these councils, or even present at these councils, or were even afterthoughts at these councils. In some cases, they didn’t even know about them until after-the-fact.

Of course, “Pope Sylvester” was not present at the First Ecumenical Council (Nicea 325AD). Only two priests from Rome were present (among the 300+ Eastern bishops at the council) and he is neither mentioned by, or even apparently though of at this council. At the Second Ecumenical Council, Constantinople (381AD), from which we have “the Nicene Creed” in its present form, “Pope Damasus” (366–384) didn’t even know it was occurring, and only received reports about the council later.

What was “the papacy” like at this time? This is from Hans Küng: “Infallibility, an Inquiry”:

[the murderer] Bishop Damasus was the first to claim the title of Sedes Apostolica (“Apostolic See”) exclusively for the Roman See; Bishop Siricius (contemporary of the far more important Ambrose, Bishop of Milan), was the first to call himself “pope,” began peremptorily to call his own statutes “apostolic,” adopted the official imperial style, and energetically extended his official powers on all sides; Bishop Innocent I wanted to have every important matter, after it had been been discussed at a synod, put before the Roman pontiff for a decision, and tried to establish liturgical centralization with the aid of historical fictions, and so on.

The historian Eamon Duffy writes of this “official imperial style”:

They [bishops of Rome] set about [creating a Christian Rome] by building churches, converting the modest tituli (community church centres) into something grander, and creating new and more public foundations, though to begin with nothing that rivaled the great basilicas at the Lateran and St. Peter’s. Over the next hundred years their churches advanced into the city – Pope Mark’s (336) San Marco within a stone’s throw of the Capitol, Pope Liberius’ massive basilica on the Esquiline (now Santa Maria Maggiore), Pope Damasus’ Santa Anastasia at the foot of the Palatine, Pope Julius’ foundation on the site of the present Santa Maria in Trastevere, Santa Pudenziana near the Baths of Diocletian under Pope Anastasius (399-401), Santa Sabina among the patrician villas on the Aventine under Pope Celestine (422-32).

These churches were a mark of the upbeat confidence of post-Constantinian Christianity in Rome. The popes were potentates, and began to behave like it. Damasus perfectly embodied this growing grandeur. An urbane career cleric like his predecessor Liberius, at home in the wealthy salons of the city, he was also a ruthless power-broker, and he did not he did not hesitate to mobilize both the city police and [a hired mob of gravediggers with pickaxes] to back up his rule… (Duffy, 37:38).

It was Siricius (384-399), who was the successor of Damasus, who “self-consciously … began to model their actions and style as Christian leaders on the procedures of the Roman state. … [Siricius responded to an inquiry from a neighboring bishop in Spain] in the form of a decretal, modeled directly on an imperial rescript, and like the rescripts, providing authoritative rulings which were designed to establish legal precedents on the issues concerned. Siricius commended the [inquiring] Bishop for consulting Rome ‘as to the head of your body’, and instructed to him to pass on ‘the salutary ordinances we have made’ to the bishops of all the surrounding provinces, for ‘no priest of the Lord is free to be ignorant of the statutes of the Apostolic See’” (Duffy 40)

Regarding the way that “historical fictions” worked their way into papal consolidation of their power, Roger Collins, Keeper of the Keys (New York, NY: Basic Books (Perseus Books Group), ©2009) writes:

In 416 Pope Innocent I (401–417) declared ‘in all of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Sicily and the isles that lie between them no churches have been established other than by those ordained bishop by the venerable Apostle Peter or his successors”…. (58)

This was totally historically inaccurate, although it wasn’t the only such incident giving sanction to historical inaccuracy.

The purpose of such “novelties”, according to Collins, was “always the” invention “maintenance of tradition” (59).

Later, Collins writes about the “Symmachan forgeries”:

This was the first occasion on which the Roman church had revisited its own history, in particular the third and fourth centuries, in search of precedents…. Some of the periods in question, such as the pontificates of Sylvester (314–355) and Liberius (352–366), were already being seen more through the prism of legend than that of history, and in the Middle Ages texts were often forged because their authors were convinced of the truth of what they contained. Their faked documents provided tangible evidence of what was already believed true.

The Symmachan forgeries reinterpreted some of the more embarrassing episodes in papal history, both real and imaginary. … How convincing these forged texts seemed in the early sixth century is unknown, but when rediscovered in later centuries, they were regarded as authentic records with unequivocal legal authority. … (Collins, 80–82).

This is how Rome does “interpretation”. The reliance of these bishops of Rome on fictions and forgeries to expand their realm is truly staggering. Collins says “It is no coincidence that the first systematic works of papal history appear at the very time the Roman church’s past was being reinvented for polemical purposes.” We have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

* * *

There was a representative of a pope present at the third Ecumenical council. History records a speech from “Philip the Roman Legate” at the Council of Ephesus (431 AD). It is important to note that this was at the third session – after all of the major issues had been decided, “after the conclusion of the whole matter”, after many of the important players had left. Philip stood up in front of an almost-empty room and said:

No one doubts, but rather it has been known to all generations, that the holy and most blessed Peter, chief and head of the Apostles, the pillar of the faith, the foundation stone of the Catholic church, received the keys of the kingdom from our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior and Redeemer of the human race, an that the power of binding and loosing sins was given to him, who up to this moment and always lives in his successors, and judges (D. 112).

For Roman Catholics, this counts as “papal ratification” of a council.

In reality, this speech of Philip’s was a novelty, a burp after a meal, a “don’t-forget-about-me” moment” which wasn’t on anybody’s mind at the time (except for those at Rome), and at Vatican I, we see here the real-life practice of what I’ve been calling “The Roman Catholic Hermeneutic”, returning “to the sources of divine revelation” – interesting how this afterthought of a speech turns into “a source of divine revelation” for the great and certain Roman Catholic IP, that fountain of all epistemological certainty.

This unimportant speech was cited at Vatican I (D. 1824), as precedent for and evidence of “the Perpetuity of the Primacy of Blessed Peter among the Roman Pontiffs.”

(The “D.” stands for Denzinger’s “Sources of Catholic Dogma”).

On mining for support for doctrines “after the fact”, and finding “100% certainty” “under certain conditions”. Or: “Dogma-appreciation 101”

This is something that Nathan Rinne picked up on a couple of weeks ago:

Earlier in the thread [the “Visible Church” thread], in post # 221, John Thayer Jensen wrote: “… people often seem to me to make the mistake of deciding, first, what things are true – which implies some external canon – and then looking around for the body that teaches that.”

Michael Liccione, responded to that in post # 222 saying, “And that is the very essence of Protestantism. One assumes that the deposit of faith is knowable independently of ecclesial authority, and that one knows its content. Then one chooses a church whose teaching conforms with that.”

That comment by Mike prompted me to write my comment citing Beale on Adam, Eve, and Sola Scriptura, but there is another way to approach this.

In his comment “people often seem to me to make the mistake of deciding, first, what things are true … and then looking around for the body that teaches that”, John Thayer Jensen has described perfectly well what I’ve called the “Roman Catholic Hermeneutic”.

This is an almost perfect description of “how the Magisterium operates”. It, of course, has the body of doctrine for which it is responsible, “the formal proximate object of faith”, which it “infallibly” hands on, and thus you all have 100% epistemological certainty as to what is “divine revelation” contrasted with “mere human opinion”.

‘Papal Infallibility’ is a cause for confusion

“Papal Infallibility” is not a point of unity even among conservative Roman Catholics.

Michael Liccione said:

What is at issue is whether any church is ever divinely protected from doctrinal error, not moral error, under certain conditions.

Elsewhere he described one component of this:

“In Catholic theology, it is not even a matter of dispute that the definition of 1870 [of “papal infallibility”] applies to Pius IX’s definition of the Immaculate Conception in 1854, and indeed to every papal ratification of conciliar dogmatic decrees set forth to bind the whole Church, going back to the 4th century.

Other Roman Catholics say rather, “Yes, it is a matter of dispute”:

“How many times has the pope taught ex cathedra, or ‘from the chair’ of Peter? How many ex cathedra papal statements have there been, and what are they? . . . Different Roman Catholic apologists have asserted very divergent numbers of infallible papal statements. . . . It depends on which apologist you ask….

Of course, the “apologists you ask” aren’t the standard, but the fact that even self-described “conservative” Roman Catholics disagree is telling [never mind all those “Liberal” Catholics who may or may not be real Catholics].

You all have “the one true teaching”, which is infallibly correct, but even on this absolutely fundamental question, the question which you say shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Roman Catholics may absolutely and infallibly make the distinction between “divine revelation and human opinion”, on this most fundamental of foundations, there is confusion.

What good on earth is the “infallible Magisterium” if it can’t answer this fundamental question? What good is having the “basis for making a principled distinction between divine revelation and human opinion”, if even that “basis” doesn’t work out in real life?

Michael Liccione, ‘Interpretive Paradigms’ (‘IPs’) and Real Life

In response to Michael Liccione 343 (and others indirectly), I ask:

Who wants their faith to be formed around a legend? I certainly don’t. But that is the legacy of hundreds of years-worth of papal “history”.

This certainly is a question to ask. There certainly is a desire to rest one’s faith on something certain, that’s not going to give way when push comes to shove. I’m sure this sort of thing is behind your desire to “distinguish between divine revelation and human theological opinion”.

My response is simply that God does not provide the kind of “infallible certainty” that you posit. Nor does he demand the need that you have “infallible certainty”. You may want such a thing – but “Divine revelation” itself neither posits it nor provides an answer for it. So it is sufficient to me to rest in God’s word.

In the blog post I mentioned above, I’m talking about “papal history” from the first four centuries of the church. I’ve termed this “the nonexistent early papacy”, although you may or may not claim with Newman that this “papacy” “remained a mere letter” for four centuries. That’s another way of saying “nobody could see it.”