Sep 26 Tue
Should I believe the Pope?
…someone asked me.
– You should believe the Truth, basically. The Truth is God. He created everything, and shared his Truth with us, in this world (including the scientific truths). He continues sustaining everything in existence.
How can I know the Truth that saves?
– God has shared it with us through the SACRED SCRIPTURE (it contains the truth of Faith), and SACRED TRADITION (it transmits the same truth).
These are the only sources of God’s Revelation, which form the DEPOSIT OF FAITH.
Faith is clarified, developed in itself, and maintained in purity by the MAGISTERIUM of the Church (“the Pope”, or “all the bishop in communion with the Pope”), in the name of Jesus Christ, and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit.
Thus, the Magisterium SERVES the truth; it does not “invent” its own truth, nor does it “substitute” for the truth. The teaching of the Magisterium is a servant of the word of God (“Magisterium verbum Dei ministrant”) and not above that word (“non supra verbum Dei”), as Second Vat. Council, Dei Verbum states (§10).
Thus, if the Pope (it will never happen) were to command you: “Take cyanide; good for you.” Cyanide will not become good for your health, suddenly. Because the claim is false.
We must believe the Pope because HE TEACHES THE TRUTH…which comes from God; not because he is very intelligent (he is), or very holy (I am sure he is) …or because he is a Jesuit.
The Pope is not a kind of magician who brings out under his sleeve the truths we must believe.
Nor is he a kind of despotic tyrant (like Lenin, Stalin or Hitler) who forces his “subjects” to believe his pronouncements, just “because I say so” (voluntarism). That would be “Ecclesiastical Positivism.”
Rather, the Church affirms the primacy of the authority of God, of His Word (Jesus), in short, of divine Revelation (Scripture and Tradition), over the teaching authority of the Church (Magisterium), which is an authority derived from Christ.
Thus, the Pope endorses all his teachings with the truth contained in Sacred Scripture and Tradition, and is a servant of them.
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