The Scope of the Pope
Infallibility, Integrity and Obedience: The Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church, 1848–2023 by John M. Rist
John M. Rist, born in 1936, is Professor of Classics and Phil-osophy Emeritus at the University of Toronto, former Father Kurt Pritzl Chair in Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, and has taught (as Regius Professor of Classics) at the University of Aberdeen, at the Patristic Institute in Rome, and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a scholar of ancient philosophy and historical theology, and over his long academic career was best known for his work on the history of ethics and metaphysics. Originally an agnostic, his work on Plato and Neoplatonist thought concerning the Good brought him, with his wife Anna, to conversion to the Catholic Church in 1980. He attained a certain degree of public attention in April 2019 as one of nineteen Catholic scholars and theologians who signed an open letter accusing the late Pope Francis of teaching heresy, particularly in the area of sexuality and morality.
Infallibility, Integrity and Obedience does not concern the controversy over “papal heresy” directly. Rather, it is a study of the immediate background to the First Vatican Council’s definition of the doctrine of papal infallibility in the decree Pastor aeternus, promulgated on July 18, 1870, and of its workings-out over the ensuing 150 years. The book concerns as much the culture—and cult—that grew up around the institution of the papacy and the person of the popes (some popes more than others) over that period, as it does the meaning of “infallibility.”
Reluctance & Ambiguity
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William J. Tighe was Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, until his retirement in 2024. He is a member of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.He is a senior editor for Touchstone.
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