Can a Pope Teach Heresy? And What Should the Church Do If That Were to Happen?

I want to make some comments on a topic that has been much discussed in Church history among Catholic theologians: the question of in what ways a Pope might be able to believe or teach error or even heresy, and what the Church should do about it if that should happen.

Let me start with a selection from St. Francis de Sales, who I think lays out the prevailing view on this subject that has been mostly followed by theologians throughout the history of the discussion of this topic.  St. Francis is one of the Church's great theologians, a Doctor of the Church.  He is writing towards the end of the sixteenth century, responding to the positions and arguments of the Protestant Reformation.  My text is taken from the full and plain text version of The Catholic Controversy as found here on the Internet Archive website.  This version was published originally in 1909 (Third Edition, Revised and Augmented) in London by Burns and Oates, translated by Rev. H. B. Mackey, under the direction of Rev. John Cuthbert Hedley, Bishop of Newport.

Under the ancient law the High Priest did not wear the Rational except when he was vested in the pontifical robes and was entering before the Lord. Thus we do not say that the Pope cannot err in his private opinions, as did John XXII; or be altogether a heretic as perhaps Honorius was. Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See, and must say as S. Peter did: Let another take his bishopric. When he errs in his private opinion he must be instructed, advised, convinced; as happened with John XXII, who was so far from dying obstinate or from determining anything during his life concerning his opinion, that he died whilst he was making the examination which is necessary for determining in a matter of faith, as his successor declared in the Extrazagantes which begins Benedictus Deus. But when he is clothed with the pontifical garments, I mean when he teaches the whole Church as shepherd, in general matters of faith and morals, then there is nothing but doctrine and truth. And in fact everything a king says is not a law or an edict, but that only which a king says as king and as a legislator. So everything the Pope says is not canon law or of legal obligation; he must mean to define and to lay down the law for the sheep, and he must keep the due order and form. Thus we say that we must appeal to him not as to a learned man, for in this he is ordinarily surpassed by some others, but as to the general head and pastor of the Church: and as such we must honour, follow, and firmly embrace his doctrine, for then he carries on his breast the Urim and Thummim, doctrine and truth. And again we must not think that in everything and everywhere his judgment is infallible, but then only when he gives judgment on a matter of faith in questions necessary to the whole Church; for in particular cases which depend on human fact he can err, there is no doubt, though it is not for us to control him in these cases save with all reverence, submission, and discretion. Theologians have said, in a word, that he can err in questions of fact, not in questions of right; that he can err extra cathedram, outside the chair of Peter, that is, as a private individual, by writings and bad example.

But he cannot err when he is in cathedra, that is, when he intends to make an instruction and decree for the guidance of the whole Church, when he means to confirm his brethren as supreme pastor, and to conduct them into the pastures of the faith.

First of all, it should be noted that St. Francis lays out the teaching of the Church with regard to the indefectibility (inability to fall away) and infallibility of the See of St. Peter.  This is a crucial foundation for everything else.  In the Catholic epistemology, the Church is infallible.  The Magisterium of the Church cannot fall away into error or teach error authoritatively and bindingly upon the Church.  And the See of St. Peter, the Pope, in particular, is protected from error and cannot lead the Church into error in his official and authoritative teaching.  I would encourage readers to read the larger context of St. Francis's comments here, in which he makes crystal clear the indefectibility and unfailing reliability of the See of St. Peter.  Also, see here and here for a more complete explanation of the Catholic view and all the nuances involved in it and citations for it from the sources of Catholic doctrine.  I won't repeat all of that here, but it is a crucial foundation for understanding what we are going to discuss.

Can a Pope Err or Teach Heresy in His Private Capacity?

St. Francis articulates that Popes cannot err in their official, authoritative teaching.  But he allows that they might be able to err as private individuals, when they are not teaching a doctrine authoritatively and bindingly to the Church.  They might be able to err in their private opinions.  They might even be able to be heretics in their private opinions (that is, their opinions might contradict the foundational doctrines of the faith).  They might even articulate their errors or heresies explicitly and manifestly - that is, they might tell them to others or teach them.  Is it true that a Pope might do that?  Is that something that God might allow to happen?  That is something upon which there has not been universal consensus among Catholic theologians, and there is no official teaching on this matter by the Church.  There is a range of opinions that can be held here, within the boundaries laid down by what the Church has taught (and especially with regard to the Church's teachings on the indefectibility and infallibility of the Church, the Church's Magisterium, and the Roman See).  St. Robert Bellarmine, another Doctor of the Church, is famous for holding the position that it is most probable that God would not allow a Pope to fall into manifest heresy even as a private person.  (See De Controversiis: Tomus I: On the Roman Pontiff, Book IV, VI).  It seems to me that the doctrine of the indefectibility and infallibility of the Roman See does not absolutely or conclusively rule out the possibility of a Pope believing or teaching error or even heresy in his private capacity, since such teaching, by its very nature, would not bind the Church to error or enter into her official teaching.

What Would Happen If a Pope Taught Error or Heresy in His Private Capacity?

So what would happen if a Pope taught error or heresy in his private capacity?  St. Francis de Sales, in the quotation above, gives the common opinion on this among Catholic theologians through history:  "Now when he is explicitly a heretic, he falls ipso facto from his dignity and out of the Church, and the Church must either deprive him, or, as some say, declare him deprived, of his Apostolic See, and must say as S. Peter did: Let another take his bishopric. When he errs in his private opinion he must be instructed, advised, convinced."  If the Pope has kept his opinions to himself, of course, since there is no public knowledge of them, nothing can be publicly done about them.  If he is known to err in some lesser matter, he can be instructed and corrected.  But if he errs more fundamentally, by holding to heretical opinions (again, opinions that contradict the foundational doctrines of the Church), and has manifested those opinions publicly, St. Francis says that, by that act, he has basically cast himself out of both the papal office and the Church itself, and the Church can recognize this and depose him or declare him deposed.  This opinion has been common among Catholic theologians.

The Church has not issued any official teaching about this possibility in recent times, nor is there anything at all about this in current canon law.  However, as I've said, what St. Francis has laid out has been the common opinion among theologians.  Also, there have been statements made about this subject in the past in collections of canon law and by Popes.  The reader can see some of these statements and some statements by important theologians of the past on this matter in this very brief and helpful article by Erick Ybarra.  For example, in the Decretum Gratiani, which was a collection of Church rules from earlier days and was a central source of canon law in the 12th and 13th centuries and significantly informed much later canon law, we find the principle articulated that "No mortal shall presume to rebuke his [the Pope’s] faults, for he who is to judge all is to be judged by no one, unless he is found straying from the faith" (Decretum Gratiani, Dist. 40, c. 6; translation in Patrick Granfield, The Limits of the Papacy [New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1987], 71, found here).  Pope Innocent III (who was Pope from 1198-1216) is famous for laying out more commentary on what this meant, saying that "only on account of sin committed against the faith can I be judged by the church" (Patrologia Latina 217, 656; Translation in Jaroslav Pelikan, Reformation of the Church and Dogma (1300-1700), The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 4 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984], found here).  Pope Innocent III elaborated further on this concept:

Nevertheless he [the pope] should not mistakenly flatter himself about his power, nor rashly glory in his eminence or honor, for the less he is judged by man, the more is he judged by God. I say "less" because he can be judged by men, or rather shown to be judged, if he clearly loses his savor to heresy, since he "who does not believe, is already judged." It is only in this case that it should be understood of him that, "If the salt loses its savor, it is good for nothing anymore, except to be thrown out and to be trodden on by men."  (Pope Innocent III, Between God and Man: Six Sermons on the Priestly Office, trans. Corinne J. Vause and Frank C. Gardiner [Washington, DC, Catholic University of American Press, 2004), 48-49, found in Erick Ybarra, The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate between Catholics and Orthodox [Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2022], 534)

Innocent III here indicates the same nuance we see in other theologians - namely, that if the Church should judge a Pope for his heresy, it is not so much that the Church is judging the Pope herself as that she is officially recognizing a judgment already passed on the Pope by God.  It has been frequently stated by many Popes and theologians and has always been and currently is stated in canon law (see canon 1404) that "the First See is judged by no one."  There is no higher human authority in the Church than the Pope, who thus cannot be judged by equal or lower levels of authority in the Church.  But the Pope is obviously subject to God, and the Church can recognize the judgment of God.

So it has been acknowledged in the past that if a Pope were to fall into manifest heresy, he might be judged by the Church in this way.  But, as I said earlier, this teaching is not currently a part of canon law.  Could this be because such a thing could not happen, as Bellarmine and others have thought?  Perhaps, but, so far as I can tell at this point based on what I've seen, I don't think there is enough evidence to say for sure.

Since we are dealing here with something as extreme as the deposition of a reigning Pope from office, we have to proceed here with extreme caution, making very sure that we don't jeopardize the indefectibility of the Church or the unfailing reliability and supreme jurisdiction of the Magisterium and the Roman See in our opinions.  As Bellarmine points out, this has never happened in the two-thousand-year history of the Church.  (He points this fact out partly to use it to argue that such a thing probably could never happen.)  There is one case in Church history where a Pope was condemned for heresy: Pope Honorius was condemned as a heretic by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681.  But, in this case, the condemnation occurred decades after Honorius's death, and the condemnation was ratified by the Pope who was reigning at that time, Leo II (without whose ratification the council's condemnation could have had no validity).  (The Honorius affair is complex and filled with all sorts of nuances, so I will refer readers here for more on this.  For one thing, it is not clear that Honorius was actually a heretic in the sense of actually believing or teaching false doctrine; his condemnation can be interpreted as due not so much to his actual opinion as to his failing to be careful enough in his words to avoid aiding and abetting a heretical movement that actually really got going only after his death.)  There has never been a case where a currently-reigning Pope has been legitimately deposed from office by the Church.  So as we consider this hypothetical possibility (which may or may not be actually possible), we have to make sure our thoughts are consistent with Catholic teaching and Catholic epistemology.

If a Pope were to be deposed from office for heresy, the proceedings of the Church against the Pope would have to be done with full Magisterial authority.  This could not be a matter of one group of theologians (even if they are priests or bishops) arguing against other groups, with no official sanction, that some teaching of the Pope was heretical.  For example, some people argue that Pope Francis's teaching on the death penalty is at least something like heretical because it contradicts earlier definitive Church teaching on this subject.  But this is not at all clear and certain, and in fact I think it is evidently wrong (see here for more on this), and in any case they cannot cite their opinion as the authoritative position of the universal Magisterium.  Going along with this, the proceedings would have to be done according to clear and recognized rules, so that everyone would be able to recognize them as a legitimate Magisterial act.  Personally, I'm not sure how that could be done without there being some clear procedure laid out in canon law, which there currently is not.  If this scenario is at all a real possibility, my recommendation is that theologians and Church officials should work hard and give some real thought to trying to figure out how we should think about these things so that we can perhaps come to some conclusive and officially-recognized theological position on these matters, and I would also recommend that, if the Church decides that, yes, this could happen, she would consider laying out very clear and explicit procedures for such an eventuality in canon law.  In that way, if this ever happened, hopefully there would be no reasonable doubt as to how to proceed.  The procedures followed would have the clear imprint of Magisterial and papal authority.  The situation, in that case, would be much like what happens when a reigning Pope dies.  In the time between the death of the last Pope and the election of the new Pope, chaos does not ensue because the Church has clear procedures to follow in such a case.  Of course, God can protect the Church from falling apart even without such clear procedural rules, and he has many times in the past, and we know he will because that is his fundamental promise to the Church, yet the Church is morally obligated to do her due diligence in trying to avoid the negative consequences of her own negligence.  It would be to the Church's detriment if God has to protect her over and against her own negligence.  And even if we can be sure the Church would not fundamentally fall away, yet still the Church's negligence could lead to many bad results and schisms.

If there was a clear procedure laid out in canon law as described above, ratified by Magisterial (including papal) authority, then it could be carried out without violation of that authority.  But what if the Pope protests that he is not a heretic, or that the judgment against him is incorrect or without authority?  If he protests in his private capacity, simply as a member of the Church, this would not seem to be a problem.  But what if he were to protest in his official capacity as Pope?  As we have noted, the Pope has supreme jurisdiction in the Church and is also incapable of leading the Church into error in his official, authoritative teaching.  The Pope's authority and protection from error in these matters is precisely on the same level as that of the whole episcopate (for the episcopate necessarily includes the Pope and the Pope necessarily speaks authoritatively for the whole episcopate), so there is no possibility for the Church to contradict or overrule the Magisterial authority of the Pope.  If the Pope were to give an authoritative teaching declaring his own teaching orthodox, or if he were to declare the whole procedure against him void, the Church would have to submit to that.  So there could be no declaring the Pope a heretic or deprived from office if the Pope were to oppose this in his official capacity.  (But see the next section for another possible twist on this point.)

Could a Pope Teach Error or Heresy in an "Official" Form but Ultra Vires?

I want to throw out a hypothetical scenario for discussion that I have not heard anyone address before.  Perhaps this has been addressed and I am not aware of it, but it seems worth discussing.  Could it ever happen that a Pope might attempt to issue not a private but an authoritative teaching, whether definitively or non-definitively, but fail to do so due to the teaching being ultra vires - that is, beyond his competent authority?  For example, imagine that a Pope issues a statement claiming, in an ex cathedra manner, that the doctrine of the Trinity is incorrect and that there is instead a divine Quaternity.  Could this ever happen?  Of course, Church teaching is crystal clear that there could never be any real ex cathedra teaching from a Pope that is heretical, for here papal infallibility is in effect at its highest degree.  But perhaps, in such a scenario as I've laid out, the teaching might be considered a false claim of ex cathedra teaching.  We know that the Pope has supreme human jurisdiction in the Church, including in the teaching of doctrine.  But we also know that the Popes are servants of God and his revelation.  They have no authority to contradict God.  If a Pope attempted to give an ex cathedra teaching that contradicted divine revelation, then, that attempt would be ultra vires - beyond the authority he has been granted by God.  It would be like the governor of Idaho attempting to make an executive order for the State of Missouri.  In such a case, then, although the outward form of the teaching is ex cathedra and the Pope is attempting to give an ex cathedra teaching, the teaching would in reality have no papal or Magisterial authority at all.  It would be, in authority, equivalent to a private teaching of the Pope.

Could such a scenario ever happen?  I don't know.  I currently cannot think of any reason to consider it inherently impossible, because it would not threaten the indefectibility of the Church or contradict Magisterial or papal infallibility.  Of course, in order not to threaten the indefectibility of the Church and the Pope, God would only allow this to happen in cases where the "papal" teaching is so obviously heretical as to leave no room for reasonable doubt on the subject.  There would have to be absolutely manifest, clear heresy, recognized as such clearly and universally by the Church.  An example of a clear and clearly-and-universally-recognized heretical teaching would be an explicit and clear denial of the doctrine of the Trinity, or the clear and explicit affirmation of some other contrary doctrine (like a divine Quaternity or something like that).  There would be no reasonable doubt in such a case that the Pope had expressed heresy and had contradicted previously-given definitive Magisterial teaching.  Since we are obligated to follow the judgment of the Pope as of supreme authority on earth, as he exercises his office as the Vicar of Christ, we would only be authorized to reject a teaching coming from him if that teaching were so clearly heretical that there could be no doubt, and it would be basically universally recognized in the Catholic Church, that that teaching is not a true papal teaching but is ultra vires.  All the things I said in earlier sections about this not being able to happen with disputable teachings, or judged by private theologians or groups of theologians or bishops, etc., would apply here in the same way as they applied to the earlier scenarios we considered.  If the Pope were to be judged and even possibly deposed in such a scenario, it would have to be by means of clearly-recognized Magisterial authority operating with clearly-recognized procedural rules.

Brief Excursus on the Possibility of Other Forms of Ecclesiastical or Other Judgments Being Enacted against Popes

The Church has made it clear that "the First See is judged by no one," and statements by Popes and in canon law collections in the past have limited the possibility of the Church judging the Pope to cases of heresy, but is it possible to consider that there might be ways in which Popes, as human persons subject like all of us to sin, imprudence, incompetence, negligence, etc., could be judged for other things by the Church?  There is a lot of discussion in the Church today about keeping priests and bishops accountable (such as with regard to sexual sins and crimes and other things).  Must the Pope remain unaccountable in all of these areas?  Or could papal authority be consistent with some forms of papal accountability?

It is clear that, in the Catholic Church, the Pope has supreme jurisdictional and doctrinal authority.  So there can never be the kind of papal accountability that would threaten those things.  We have to trust that God will keep the Popes adequately accountable, since they are ultimately subject to his judgment.  But what if the Magisterium, including the Pope, were to put procedures into canon law for papal accountability, much as there are procedures for accountability of other persons in the Church?  In such a case, the laws would be legitimate, because established with legitimate Magisterial and papal authority.  Of course, there would always be the possibility that a Pope could overrule such procedures, since to deny this possibility would be to remove the supreme jurisdiction of the Pope, but at least there would be procedures in place that Popes would be ordinarily expected to follow, imposed upon them with papal authority.  There would be some moral force to these laws, even if that force is not jurisdictionally superior to papal jurisdiction, for if a Pope were to refuse to submit to such laws he would be going against established norms in the Church and against what his predecessors in the papacy or even he himself had previously established as important for the good of the Church, and this would reflect very badly on him.  Unless he had very good and clear reasons to refuse to submit to those laws, he would be publicly highlighting what would at least appear to be an unreasonable flaunting of his personal moral responsibility and thus would bring significant dishonor and perhaps even scandal upon himself, on the papal office, and on the Catholic Church.  Perhaps there could even be decrees or rules passed regarding papal accountability that would be definitive in nature, so that it would be ultra vires for a Pope to overturn them in the future.  I think there are some things at least worth considering here.

Sola Scriptura in the Old Testament?

Sola Scriptura in the Old Testament?

Sometimes Protestants will argue that the Old Testament presents, or at least implies, a Sola Scriptura epistemology.  We know that there were Scriptures in Old Testament times (like the Law of Moses), but we have no evidence, they say, of any infallible Tradition or infallible Magisterium.  When Jesus presented himself as the Messiah, and when the early Christians argued that Jesus was the Messiah, they appealed to the Old Testament Scriptures without any reference to any authoritative Tradition or Magisterium.  So it would seem, they say, that Sola Scriptura was the rule up to the time of Christ.

But this argument falls apart pretty quickly once we begin to look at it more closely.  For one thing, even if it were true that Sola Scriptura was the rule in Old Testament times, this would not prove that Sola Scriptura is meant to be the rule in Christian times.  There are many changes between the Old Testament and the New Testament dispensations.  This is an important observation because, usually, the argument that the OT practiced Sola Scriptura is meant as part of a larger argument trying to establish that Sola Scriptura is the practice we should have today rather than the Catholic three-legged stool view of Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium.  But even if the Sola Scripturist could prove his case regarding the entire subject of this article, this would fall short of establishing the Protestant epistemology vs. the Catholic epistemology as being correct.

But another problem with the argument is that there is simply no evidence that Sola Scriptura was the rule in OT times, and there is a good deal of significant evidence pointing to the opposite conclusion.  Old Testament Judaism existed a very long time ago, and there is a lot we don't know about it historically.  This can make it difficult to work out precisely how Scripture, Tradition, and authority worked in Old Testament times (or even in later times, such as during the days of Jesus).  Also, I am not an expert on ancient Judaism, so I have a lot to learn myself about what we do know about this subject.  But over the past few years, I have become impressed with some of the evidence pointing to a richer view of Tradition and Magisterium in ancient Judaism than I had ever thought about previously.  Perhaps one of the best ways to convey some of this is to construct a story illustrating a theory of authority from the earliest times of Judaism through the times of the early Church based on the evidence available (or at least the relevant evidence that I am aware of).  Some of this story seems pretty clear from the facts; other parts of it are a bit speculative and hypothetical, but plausible.  If someone wants to argue that Sola Scriptura was practiced in OT times, they will need to show that this rendition of events (as well as others which could be given) is not plausible or possible, and that they can construct a Sola-Scripturish account of OT epistemology that adequately accounts for all the facts.

So here's my narration:

Old Testament Times

In the earliest days of human history, judging from the early books of the Old Testament, there was no Scripture at all.  The laws of God, the truths of the faith, and the stories of God's interaction with the human race and with his people in history were passed down by means of unwritten Tradition.  This would apply to the whole period from the creation of the world, through the Fall, the Flood of Noah, the Tower of Babel, the lives of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jacob's sons, etc.) through the days of Moses and the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai.  The giving of the Law appears to be the earliest example of God's Word being given by means of Scripture.

The Law was written, but it required interpretation and application.  God appointed a Magisterium to authoritatively interpret and apply the Law.

If there arise a matter too hard for thee in judgment, between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between stroke and stroke, being matters of controversy within thy gates: then shalt thou arise, and get thee up into the place which the Lord thy God shall choose; and thou shalt come unto the priests the Levites, and unto the judge that shall be in those days, and enquire; and they shall shew thee the sentence of judgment: And thou shalt do according to the sentence, which they of that place which the Lord shall choose shall shew thee; and thou shalt observe to do according to all that they inform thee: According to the sentence of the law which they shall teach thee, and according to the judgment which they shall tell thee, thou shalt do: thou shalt not decline from the sentence which they shall shew thee, to the right hand, nor to the left. And the man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the priest that standeth to minister there before the Lord thy God, or unto the judge, even that man shall die: and thou shalt put away the evil from Israel. And all the people shall hear, and fear, and do no more presumptuously.  (Deuteronomy 17:8-13; see also 31:9; 33:10; Jeremiah 18:18; Malachi 2:7; II Chronicles 19:8, 11; 31:4; etc.)

God appointed Moses, of course, as a prophet to teach his Word to the people.  And he also appointed regular interpreters and appliers of his Law to authoritatively interpret and apply it - a court made up of priests, Levites, and judges.  It is not up to the individual Israelite to interpret the Law for himself.  He must follow the authoritative Magisterium.  The rulings of the Magisterium will thus become a Tradition to be passed down alongside the written Law to provide an authoritative context for understanding and applying that Law.

God did not simply give his people in the Old Testament a single revelation at one time, but he continually sent new revelation to his people (Hebrews 1:1).  He did this through several means.  He gave Israel the Urim and the Thummim, which seem to have been some kind of supernatural means by which God would sometimes communicate with Israel (see here for more on this).  Especially, he sent prophets regularly who would give new revelation to his people.  Sometimes these prophets would add new information as to how Israel was to worship God.  (For example, David, as a prophet, revealed much about the plan for the Temple in Jerusalem and about the worship of the Temple, including lots of information about music that the Law of Moses said nothing about.)  These prophets seem to have been extraordinary, occasional messengers from God, in addition to the regular, ongoing interpreters of God's Law in the court of Levites, priests, and judges I mentioned earlier.  Israel was required to listen to both the ordinary and the extraordinary messengers of God.

I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.  (Deuteronomy 18:18-22)

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him. And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.  (Deuteronomy 13:1-5)

God will send prophets regularly.  If they are true prophets, they are authoritative and must be followed.  If they are false prophets--that is, they claim to be messengers from God but aren't--they should be rejected.  But how are the people of God to know whether or not someone is a true prophet or a false prophet?  There are two tests.  If the prophet gives some supernatural sign, like foretelling the future, and his sign is proven false, he's a false prophet.  However, even if his sign comes true, it does not necessarily follow that he is a true prophet.  He must also not lead people astray to false religion.  A false prophet can have deceptive signs, at least to some degree.  (cf. Exodus 7:11, 22, etc.; Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Revelation 13:11-15.)  But if a person comes, claiming to be a prophet, and he both has supernatural signs that are fulfilled and also encourages the people to continue in the true religion, that person is to be accepted and followed as a prophet.

So there is this interplay between the ordinary interpreters of God's law and the extraordinary messengers of God.  The Old Testament is replete with condemnations for Israelite ordinary leaders who would not listen to the words of the prophets.  Sometimes the people of God will await prophets to tell them things the ordinary leaders cannot tell them.  (See, for example, 1 Maccabees 4:44-46.)

New Testament Times and the Pharisaic Tradition

This state of affairs continues throughout Old Testament history, all the way up to the time of Christ.  It is well known that during the time of Christ, the Jews are split into a few competing traditions--Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, etc.  These disagreed with each other on a number of points, including authority.  Pharisees and Sadducees, for example, seem to have disagreed with each other concerning the canon of Scripture, the nature of the afterlife, the existence of angels, the resurrection, and apparently the authority of the Pharisaic Tradition.  The Pharisaic Tradition emphasized a three-legged stool of authority, including Scripture, Tradition, and Magisterium.  They held that, in addition to the written Word of God, there was an unwritten Tradition that was passed down from Moses to their own time, consisting of some things from Moses's time, as well as elements of interpretation of the Law that had been added authoritatively by the later teachers of the Law.  This Tradition was equal in authority to the written Scripture, because it was authorized by God and guided by him.  As for who the official, authoritative Magisterium is, they looked to the court made up of priests, Levites, and judges we mentioned earlier.  After the return from the Babylonian Captivity, we see this court renewed in the tradition of the scribes and rabbis starting with Ezra, who was priest and scribe.  (We can see Ezra acting as official interpreter of the Law in Nehemiah 8.)  The Pharisees saw their own Tradition as faithfully maintaining this authoritative Magisterial tradition.  In their view, then, Scripture is infallible, but there is also an infallibility granted by God to the authoritative Magisterium as they interpret and apply the Word of God in the unwritten Tradition.

Jesus seems to have accepted the Pharisaic Tradition.  There are lots of reasons to think this is the case.  For one thing, he seems to say so pretty much straight out in Matthew 23:1-3:

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, saying "The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not."

The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses's seat.  That is, they are heirs of Moses's authority.  Therefore, the people of God are obliged to follow their teachings.  Their teaching is authoritative.  And we see that wherever the Pharisaic Tradition disagrees with, for example, the Sadducees, Jesus and the early Christians go with the Pharisaic Tradition.  They agree with that Tradition about the canon of Scripture, the resurrection and the afterlife, the existence of angels, etc.  St. Paul calls himself a Pharisee both before and after becoming an apostle of Christ (Philippians 3:5; Acts 23:6).  The early Christians seem to have accepted some of the unwritten traditions of Judaism handed down outside of Scripture, such as the tradition of the rock following the people of Israel in the desert, Jannes and Jambres as the names of two of the Egyptian magicians of Pharaoh, stories about Moses's death and burial, prophecies from Enoch, etc. (see, for example, John 4:5-6; Luke 11:47; 1 Corinthians 10:4; Jude 1:14-16; Jude 1:9; 2 Timothy 3:8).

A question might arise at this point:  How can Jesus and his disciples have arisen within the Pharisaic Tradition, when Jesus spent so much time criticizing, attacking, and arguing with the Pharisees?  They seem like "bad guys" in the gospels.  Well, in-family disputes can often be more intense than out-of-family disputes.  When groups are more closely-related, oftentimes their conflicts are intensified.  The Pharisaic Tradition seems to have been a somewhat large tradition that wasn't entirely monolithic.  There was agreement on some core things, but there were lots of disagreements as well and different Pharisaic schools of thought and practice.  After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, all forms of Judaism pretty much died out except for two--the Christians and the more mainstream Pharisaic Tradition, which evolved into Rabbinic Judaism, or historic Orthodox Judaism.  Within Rabbinic literature, which itself arose out of the Pharisaic Tradition, we see criticisms of certain groups of Pharisees.  There is a well-known passage in the Mishnah which describes a "plague of Pharisees" who help bring destruction to Israel.  (See here and here.)  The commentary on this passage in the Talmud talks about seven different groups of Pharisees.  There are a couple different lists of these seven, and in both of these lists all or all but a couple of the types of Pharisees are criticized.  The criticisms in some cases echo criticisms Jesus made in the gospels--like accusations of avoiding doing good deeds by making up an excuse that some other commandment needs to be done, and doing good deeds ostentatiously in order to be praised by men.  So it seems that criticism of "Pharisees" is not something uncommon in the Pharisaic Tradition.

But didn't Jesus specifically criticize the Pharisees for passing down "traditions of men" without authority by means of which they would undercut obedience to the genuine Word of God?  Doesn't this imply that he rejected the whole Pharisaic concept of an authoritative Tradition outside of Scripture?  No, it doesn't necessarily imply that.  For one thing, Jesus did not make an argument rejecting Tradition as such in his arguments with the Pharisees.  He only objected to "traditions of men" put in opposition to the Word of God.  This does not rule out the possibility that he accepted a more fundamental concept of "Tradition" as having authority for interpreting the written Word.  It should also be noted that, in the Pharisaic Tradition, it seems that not all traditions were of equal weight.  The Jewish Encyclopedia's article on the "Oral Law" (in the section entitled "Contents of Oral Law") lays out eight different categories of traditions in the "oral" (that is, the unwritten) Tradition.  The first five of these categories have authority equal to the written Law, but the last three do not.  And there were arguments among schools of rabbis about some of the traditions.  It is quite natural, then, to see Jesus as opposing some of the Pharisees who were inventing man-made traditions and using them to trump the Word of God.  In doing this, Jesus was doing only what others in the Pharisaic Tradition commonly did as well.  So there is no need to read any of this as implying that Jesus rejected the whole, fundamental idea of "Tradition" in the Pharisaic Tradition.  Well then, why didn't Jesus refer to that Tradition in his teaching?  Why did he quote only the written Word?  Well, why should he have quoted traditional sources?  The main purpose of the unwritten Tradition--and this is true both for traditional Judaism as well as for later Catholic Christianity--is not to provide a host of new doctrines not found in Scripture.  Its purpose is primarily interpretive in nature.  It is not intended so much to add to the Scriptures as to provide an authoritative interpretive context for them.  So, in later Catholic tradition (from the early Church up to the present day), we find Catholic theologians often appealing to Scripture to show the foundation of their doctrines, but they understand the Scripture to be properly interpreted in the context of the Church's Tradition (rather than by means of individuals interpreting it for themselves in opposition to the Church's Tradition).  This sometimes confuses Protestants reading the Church Fathers.  The Fathers will say things that sound, to Protestant ears, somewhat Sola-Scripturish.  Protestants read their own epistemology into these quotations from the Fathers, because they are not used to thinking about an appeal to Scripture involving a broader trust in an interpretative tradition surrounding and contextualizing the Scriptures.  The same can be said for why Protestants tend to read Jesus as affirming Sola Scriptura in his arguments with the Pharisees, even though Jesus never articulates such a position.  (And the same thing happens with other parts of the New Testament as well.  See here for more on this.)  And in telling the people to follow the teachings of the Pharisees (Matthew 23:1-3), Jesus was in fact telling them to follow the ordinary Magisterial authority and Tradition along with the Scriptures.  Also, Jesus seems to have wanted to make a point of speaking in such a way as to indicate that he himself had the highest authority to interpret the will and the Word of God, even above the ordinary teachers appointed by God.  He was not simply another scribe or rabbi, but the very Word of God himself.  (Matthew 7:28-29:  "And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.")  Therefore it is not surprising that he tended to use his own authority as his warrant for his teachings rather than appealing to the ordinary interpretive Magisterial authority.  He assumed the validity of that authority and explicitly commanded people to follow it, but he also emphasized his own transcendence of it.

The Transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament Dispensation

So, during the times of the Old Testament before Jesus came, there was an infallible Scripture (frequently being added to), and there was an infallible Tradition of interpretation and application of Scripture handed down by a God-guided and thus infallible Magisterium--the Levites, priests, judges, scribes, and rabbis, supplemented frequently by occasional prophets, rulings from the Urim and Thummim, etc.  The fundamental Tradition was infallible (and necessary to understand how to implement aspects of the written Law, how to understand various teachings, how to know which books were in the canon, etc.), but underneath that fundamental Tradition there were human traditions which were not infallible, and which could be erroneous and even contrary to the Word of God and which thus required opposition.

How do we understand the transition from this Old Testament system to the New Testament system of Jesus as the Messiah, head of the people of God, and under him apostles who represent him, who later appoint bishops to succeed them, headed by the Bishop of Rome, the Successor of St. Peter, etc.?  There is certainly a break that occurs here.  Jesus himself indicates a rough transition here in his Parable of the Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46).  If the Old Testament people of God had leaders with infallible Magisterial authority, how could the early Christians have been justified in breaking away from this Magisterium and forming a new Magisterium under Christ?  Perhaps the answer is built into the very Old Testament system itself.  We've seen that the Magisterium of the Old Testament had two components to it--an ordinary component consisting of the regular court of interpretation of the Law, and an extraordinary and occasional component consisting of God's occasional messages to individuals, especially to prophets who would then speak the Word of the Lord to the people.  Both components were authoritative, and neither had authority to negate the other.  A prophet who negated the Law would be rejected as a false prophet by the very criteria of the Law.  Priests, Levites, judges, scribes, etc., who would reject the word of a proven prophet are condemned as well.  Also, we remember that, according to the Pharisaic Tradition, there was full authoritativeness and infallibility only with regard to the fundamental Tradition of the oral law; there was not infallibility or full authoritativeness with regard to all the traditions of the different groups and schools.

When Jesus came, he fulfilled the Old Testament signs for being a true prophet and, indeed, the Messiah.  He gave supernatural signs which came true and which showed he had supernatural power, and his message did not lead to provably false religion (that is, to anything that could be proved to be contrary to the previously-given Word of God).  There were those who accused him of false teaching and of blasphemy, but they could not prove their charges by reference to the Old Testament or to the fundamental, unanimous Tradition of the people of God.  So Jesus comes, providing sufficient evidence to warrant acceptance of himself and his message.  Some follow him, some don't.  From this point on, the Jewish people are divided over Christ, and the Pharasaic Tradition itself is divided over him, for many among the Pharisees follow Christ, while many others don't.  The Sanhedrin--which seems to have been something like the Jewish Supreme Court--rejected Christ, condemning him to death as a blasphemer.  But the decision was not unanimous, even though a majority of the Jewish leaders rejected Christ.  Nor could they justify their rejection of him, considering the signs he had done to show himself a true messenger from God whom they were thus bound to accept and follow.  And this was before his death.  After his death and resurrection, more and more evidence for Jesus's claims continued to be added.  So the rejection of Jesus by the majority of Jewish leaders cannot be established as having had infallible and authoritative Magisterial authority, even by Old Testament or Pharisaic standards.  Therefore, he should have been followed as a true prophet and as the Messiah, and he was fully authorized as such to judge the Jewish leaders and transfer authority from the Synagogue to the Church.  Just as God had the authority to institute the Law and to add to it and change it from time to time by means of his messengers (during Old Testament times), so God had authority to make the overall transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament dispensation, with all that that entailed, by means of his Son and his Son's apostles.

Conclusion

So there is no basis for claiming that a Sola Scriptura epistemology was operative in Old Testament times.  There is simply no evidence that requires such a position, and the existing evidence seems to point plausibly and with a significant degree of probability in the opposite direction.  There is also no basis for claiming that a Sola Scriptura epistemology was operative in New Testament times.  The New Testament never teaches Sola Scriptura, but instead presents a picture including authoritative Scripture, authoritative traditions passed down, and an authoritative Magisterium.  And the early as well as subsequent Christian (Catholic) Church after the time of the apostles did not teach Sola Scriptura either, but rather the same three-legged-stool epistemology of Scripture/Tradition/Magisterium.  (However, I cannot go into making further arguments for these things here, as it would take me beyond the scope of this particular article.  For some arguments relative to claims of Sola Scriptura in the New Testament, see here and here.  For relevant information having to do with the Church Fathers, see here, here, and here.  See here for a more general fictional debate between a Catholic and a Protestant on the merits of the two positions overall, involving a lot of discussion over the merits of the Catholic vs. the Protestant epistemology in Scripture and in Church history.  Also see here for a short, humorous, fictional dialogue showing what things would have been like if Sola Scriptura had been the practice of the Church during the time of the Book of Acts.)

For further reading (in addition to sites linked to in the midst of the article above), see here and here.

The Difference Between Legitimate Disagreement and Illegitimate Dissent

It is clear in Catholic doctrine that Church teaching is authoritative, as it comes from Christ, and is reliable to lead to truth, as it is guided by the Holy Spirit, and that therefore Catholics are required to assent to it.  The Church can teach in both a definitive manner and a non-definitive manner.  When the Church teaches definitively, Catholics are obliged to accept the teaching definitively and absolutely.  When the Church teaches with less than full definitiveness, Catholics are obliged to accept the teaching to the degree and in the form required by the intention of the teacher.  The Church has spelled out this schema in many places, such as in the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) document Donum Veritatis (1990):

When the Magisterium of the Church makes an infallible pronouncement and solemnly declares that a teaching is found in Revelation, the assent called for is that of theological faith. This kind of adherence is to be given even to the teaching of the ordinary and universal Magisterium when it proposes for belief a teaching of faith as divinely revealed.

When the Magisterium proposes "in a definitive way" truths concerning faith and morals, which, even if not divinely revealed, are nevertheless strictly and intimately connected with Revelation, these must be firmly accepted and held.

When the Magisterium, not intending to act "definitively", teaches a doctrine to aid a better understanding of Revelation and make explicit its contents, or to recall how some teaching is in conformity with the truths of faith, or finally to guard against ideas that are incompatible with these truths, the response called for is that of the religious submission of will and intellect. This kind of response cannot be simply exterior or disciplinary but must be understood within the logic of faith and under the impulse of obedience to the faith.  (#23, footnotes removed)

The CDF, in its Doctrinal Commentary on the Concluding Formula of the Professio fidei (1998), articulated that "teachings set forth by the authentic ordinary Magisterium in a non-definitive way . . . require degrees of adherence differentiated according to the mind and the will manifested; this is shown especially by the nature of the documents, by the frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or by the tenor of the verbal expression" (#11).  This language was echoing the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium, #25, which said this:

Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.

In modern times, those who have wished to dissent from some of the authoritative teachings of the Church in defiance of the Church's authority have sometimes attempted to justify their defiance by redefining "submission of mind and will" into something like "respectful consideration."  In their view, one must consider seriously the Church's non-definitive teaching, but one must not trust it implicitly.  One must use one's own private judgment to evaluate that teaching, and then one is justified in rejecting that teaching if it fails that private investigation.  Thus, whereas, with definitive teaching, the rule of belief is the Church's teaching, the rule of belief with regard to non-definitive teaching is not the authority of the Church but the agreement of the Church's teaching with one's private, independent judgment and confirmation.

A classic example of this kind of dissent is seen in the attitude of the Society of St. Pius X, which was founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970 to continue what Lefrebre regarded as "authentic" Catholic faith and practice in opposition to what he considered to be the errors and deviations of the modern Church after Vatican II.  Lefebvre and his followers wanted to reject portions of Vatican II on the grounds that the Council did not intend to affirm anything in the form of a solemn, definitive declaration, but only under the authority of the "ordinary" magisterium, which they held to be subject to their private judgment.  But that loophole had already been cut off by the Council itself, as well as by Pope St. Paul VI, such as in his General Hearing of January 12, 1966:

There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions engaging the infallibility of the ecclesiastical Magisterium. The answer is known by whoever remembers the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964: given the Council’s pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing, in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.  But it has invested its teachings with the authority of the supreme ordinary magisterium, which ordinary magisterium is so obviously authentic that it must be accepted with docility and sincerity by all the faithful, according to the mind of the Council as expressed in the nature and aims of the individual documents.  (Pope St. Paul VI, General Hearing, Wednesday, January 12, 1966, following the translation found here by Dr. Jeff Mirus)

Pope St. Paul VI, in a letter to Archbishop Lefebvre in 1976, reminded him of this fact:

Again, you cannot appeal to the distinction between what is dogmatic and what is pastoral to accept certain texts of this Council and to refuse others.  Indeed, not everything in the Council requires an assent of the same nature: only what is affirmed by definitive acts as an object of faith or as a truth related to faith requires an assent of faith.  But the rest also forms part of the solemn magisterium of the Church to which each member of the faithful owes a confident acceptance and a sincere application.  ("Pope Paul VI's Letter to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre", found on the Word on Fire website)

Now, it is true that non-definitive magisterial teachings can contain in them elements of varying degrees of authority.  The less formal, more "casual" (for lack of a better word) nature of the format of these teachings allows for such a mix.  Sometimes there are elements of non-definitive teachings that are provisional in nature, tied to the circumstances of the times and therefore subject to change as circumstances change, and sometimes there are incidental observations that the mind and the will of the magisterial teacher does not intend to put forward as authoritative teachings binding the minds of the faithful.  The Church tells us to use common sense, combined with good reading and listening skills--as well as asking for clarification if necessary--when we listen to non-definitive teachings and decide what response they call forth from us.  Sometimes magisterial decisions, particularly practical or prudential decisions, involve elements that can even invite respectful criticism from the faithful.  When the "mind and the will manifested" of the magisterial teacher allows such respectful criticism, it is legitimate and not a form of dissent from or defiance of the authority of the Church.  The CDF made this point explicitly in Donum Veritatis: 

The willingness to submit loyally to the teaching of the Magisterium on matters per se not irreformable must be the rule. It can happen, however, that a theologian may, according to the case, raise questions regarding the timeliness, the form, or even the contents of magisterial interventions. Here the theologian will need, first of all, to assess accurately the authoritativeness of the interventions which becomes clear from the nature of the documents, the insistence with which a teaching is repeated, and the very way in which it is expressed.  (#24, footnote removed)

One must therefore take into account the proper character of every exercise of the Magisterium, considering the extent to which its authority is engaged. It is also to be borne in mind that all acts of the Magisterium derive from the same source, that is, from Christ who desires that His People walk in the entire truth.  (#17)

But there is a fine line between legitimate criticism, within the bounds the Church has allowed, and dissent from Church teaching that involves defiance of the Church's authority.  Sometimes that line can be hard to see, and certain forms of expression can have the effect of obscuring that line.  For example, in 1968, the Catholic bishops of the United States issued a pastoral letter entitled "Human Life in Our Day".  Part of the impetus for this document was to defend Pope St. Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae, which was very unpopular in "progressive" circles and was drawing a great deal of dissent.  But in the course of this pastoral letter, the US bishops tried to lay out some boundaries for legitimate dissent and criticism.  They said that professional theologians could, in limited circumstances, dissent from certain non-infallible magisterial teachings, provided they do so with great care and caution, respect for the consciences of others, in an appropriate manner, etc.

When there is question of theological dissent from non-infallible doctrine, we must recall that there is always a presumption in favor of the magisterium. Even non-infallible authentic doctrine, though it may admit of development or call for clarification or revision, remains binding and carries with it a moral certitude, especially when it is addressed to the universal Church, without ambiguity in response to urgent questions bound up with faith and crucial to morals. The expression of theological dissent from the magisterium is in order only if the reasons are serious and wellfounded, if the manner of the dissent does not question or impugn the teaching authority of the Church and is such as not to give scandal.  (Found here on the EWTN website, taken from L'Osservatore Romano, Weekly Edition in English, 12 December 1968, page 6 and 19 December 1968, page 5)

It has been observed that this last sentence is very ambiguous and could lend itself to being made use of by dissenters who wish to dissent from teaching the Church intends to bind them to, dissenters like Archbishop Lefebvre and his SSPX movement.  (Although, in the case of Humanae Vitae, the dissent was rather from the more liberal, "progressive" side of the Church.)  Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin discusses this in his book Teaching With Authority (El Cajon, CA: Catholic Answers Press, 2018).  He provides an interesting commentary from Cardinal Avery Dulles on the apparent subjectivity of the US bishops' criteria for legitimate dissent:

Cardinal Avery Dulles remarked that these conditions "proved difficult to apply.  Who was to say whether the reasons were well-founded?  How could one establish that the authority of the Magisterium was not being impugned when its teaching was being denied?  How could scandal be avoided when theologians were openly saying that the pope's teaching was wrong?"  [The Dulles quote is from The Craft of Theology: From Symbol to System, 2nd ed. (New York: Crossroad, 1996), 113.]

"Human Life in Our Day" was issued in 1968.  Since that time, the Church has issued several documents clarifying further the assent required of non-definitive teachings, including the CDF document we've quoted from a few times now, Donum Veritatis, and also the CDF commentary on the Professio Fidei, also quoted from earlier.  Donum Veritatis in particular focuses a good deal of attention on the illicitness of "dissent", while at the same time distinguishing it from legitimate dialogue and even criticisms that can sometimes be made with regard to magisterial pronouncements.  The US bishops, in 1992, issued another document entitled The Teaching Ministry of the Diocesan Bishops: A Pastoral Reflection (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1992).  In this document, the bishops are much more careful to make clear that dissent to Church teaching is not acceptable and that the Catholic faithful are required to assent to the non-definitive teaching of the Church with "submission of will and intellect."  They distinguish various forms of refusal of assent to non-definitive teachings--non-acceptance, private dissent, and public dissent--and they make it clear that all three are unacceptable.

    Perhaps, a more common experience of nonacceptance in the Church today is the withholding of assent to what is identified as nondefinitive teaching. . . .  While these manifestations of nonacceptance may fall short of outright rejection, nevertheless they remain nonacceptance, the withholding of the religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium [religious submission of mind and will] due to the ordinary magisterium of the Church. . . .

    Quite distinct from the withholding of assent is the private, individual judgment that conclusively rejects the ordinary, nondefinitive teaching of the Church.  Such a judgment constitutes private dissent and is not consistent with that religiosum voluntatis et intellectus obsequium due to church teaching.  Even though dissent of this kind remains private, nevertheless it is unacceptable. . . .

    Sometimes the nonacceptance of nondefinitive teaching passes beyond the nature of a "difficulty" and becomes a judgment that an authoritative teaching is false.  This, of course, is quite different from a critical judgment about the adequacy of expression or the conceptual limitations of a particular teaching. . . .

    Bishops cannot be indifferent to the public denial or the contradiction of church teaching, especially by those whose position confers public influence.  Public dissent, especially in the form of advocacy for alternative positions, seriously impairs the Church as a communion of faith and witness.  (Teaching Ministry, pp. 17-19, footnotes removed)

The document recognizes that the "ordinary, nondefinitive teaching of individual popes and bishops may contain assertions that fall short of the full truth of the gospel and may be in need of development and amplification.  Interventions in the prudential order may even be in need of correction" (p. 15).  "At times . . . professional theologians or other competent persons may conclude that the search has not been completed or that what has been asserted is still imperfect, and their acceptance will be qualified accordingly" (p. 15).  Scholars may discuss difficulties in professional journals, etc.  However, "[t]these considerations presume that theologians and scholars are willing to take the necessary steps to overcome their difficulties and abide by an authoritative intervention on the part of the magisterium should it consider one necessary" (p. 18).

    Finally, the disposition toward the teaching authority of the bishop on the part of those who are dissenting must be taken into consideration.  If an individual or group dissents, but retains the disposition to abide by a final judgment of the magisterium on an issue, the possibility of obsequium religiosum remains.  On the other hand, if dissent is expressed in absolute terms and there are no signs of docility toward the Church, that possibility may well be foreclosed.  In that case, the bishop may initiate the process leading to the possible imposition of a canonical penalty (cf. c. 1371.1).  (p. 19).

(I should mention that this document, as well as Donum Veritatis and many of the other documents I've mentioned, are rich with pastoral suggestions regarding how to deal with people who struggle with certain Church teachings, sometimes in good conscience.  I cannot do justice to this aspect of the documents, or other important nuances, as well as the significant amount of good practical wisdom these documents contain, in such a short article as this.)

In conclusion, as we said earlier, we can indeed, at times, criticize and even disagree with some of the things the bishops and the Pope say.  But the real question is, Who determines the degree and form of assent required in any particular case?  The erroneous dissenters make themselves and their own judgment the determining factor in deciding what they are required to assent to and to what degree they are required to assent.  But the Church teaches that it is the bishops and the Pope who make that determination.  This is the fundamental point and the fundamental difference between legitimate diversity and criticism and illegitimate dissent and defiance.  We don't get to subject the teachings of the bishops and the Pope to our own judgment and decide, even against their intentions and requirements, what we will agree with and what we will disagree with.  We must assent to their teaching according to their manifest mind and will.  We must accept even non-definitive magisterial teaching as inherently reliable, so that we will not subject it to our judgment and disagree with it if the "validity of the given teaching is not evident or upon the opinion that the opposite position would be the more probable" (Donum Veritatis, #28)  So while there can sometimes legitimately be disagreement with some things the Pope or bishops say, there can never be dissent from magisterial teaching, in the sense of refusal to accept magisterial teaching to the extent that it is intended as authoritative and binding.  Whenever and to the extent that the bishops and/or the Pope make use of their magisterial authority with the intention to give to the Church an authentic, official teaching, leading the people of God into truth or showing them how to stay faithful to the truth, that teaching must be assented to.

For more, see here, here, and here.

Why the Traditionalists Are Wrong

I then urge my fellow Catholics to re-learn these lessons that they have taught me so many years ago. It is not sufficient to rally against the protestants’ errors, if you do not remain vigilant to not fall in the same traps, even if the bait is different.

Trying to uphold Tradition while fostering dissent from the pope is just as untenable a position as trying to defend Scripture while fostering defiance to the scriptural authority of the petrine and apostolic faith. It is a paradoxical endeavor. No good will come out of it. Because one of the more traditional tenets of our Catholic faith is precisely the obedience due to our pope.

~ Pedro Gabriel, "Sola Traditio", Where Peter Is, 2/8/18

The Traditionalists are wrong for one, simple reason:  Although they peg themselves as the defenders of the historic Catholic faith, their distinctive position in fact contradicts and opposes the Catholic faith.

Let me be more specific, however.  When I speak of "Traditionalists" in this context, I am thinking of those self-proclaimed advocates of historic Catholic Tradition who dissent from the teaching of the Church and disobey her authority in certain areas.  I do not have in mind those of the faithful who simply prefer more "traditional" modes of worship, pious practices, etc., such as the Latin Mass or communion on the tongue, but who are also faithful and obedient to the authority of Church and do not oppose any of her teaching or disobey her rules.  There is nothing wrong with this obedient form of "traditionalism".

According to the Catholic faith--the faith of the Catholic Church--the preservation and guardianship of the divine revelations rests on the three-legged stool of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium.  Scripture is the Word of God written.  Tradition is the Word of God passed down by the Church in other ways--preaching, teaching, living, and worshipping.  The Magisterium consists of the college of bishops together with the head of that college, the Bishop of Rome, who is the Successor of St. Peter.  Scripture and Tradition are the sources of the divine revelation, while the Magisterium is the God-guided guardian and interpreter of that revelation.  Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium are all necessary to properly preserve, interpret, and apply the divine revelation.  As the analogy of the three-legged stool suggests, all three are essential.  By God's guidance and grace, all three are in harmony and work together to convey the revelation of God.  They cannot be pitted against each other.  To pit one against the others is to destroy the very foundation of the Catholic epistemology.

Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church. Holding fast to this deposit the entire holy people united with their shepherds remain always steadfast in the teaching of the Apostles, in the common life, in the breaking of the bread and in prayers (see Acts 2, 42, Greek text), so that holding to, practicing and professing the heritage of the faith, it becomes on the part of the bishops and faithful a single common effort.

But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been entrusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the Church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ. This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed on, listening to it devoutly, guarding it scrupulously and explaining it faithfully in accord with a divine commission and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it draws from this one deposit of faith everything which it presents for belief as divinely revealed.

It is clear, therefore, that sacred tradition, Sacred Scripture and the teaching authority of the Church, in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the others, and that all together and each in its own way under the action of the one Holy Spirit contribute effectively to the salvation of souls.  (Dei Verbum, 10, footnotes removed)

As I mentioned above, the Magisterium consists of the entire college of bishops united to the Pope.  Magisterial authority resides in the Pope as the Successor of St. Peter, in the entire college of bishops united with and in agreement with the Pope, and in the individual bishops so long as their teaching is in agreement with the rest of the college of bishops and with the Pope.

But the college or body of bishops has no authority unless it is understood together with the Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter as its head. The pope's power of primacy over all, both pastors and faithful, remains whole and intact. In virtue of his office, that is as Vicar of Christ and pastor of the whole Church, the Roman Pontiff has full, supreme and universal power over the Church. And he is always free to exercise this power. The order of bishops, which succeeds to the college of apostles and gives this apostolic body continued existence, is also the subject of supreme and full power over the universal Church, provided we understand this body together with its head the Roman Pontiff and never without this head. This power can be exercised only with the consent of the Roman Pontiff. For our Lord placed Simon alone as the rock and the bearer of the keys of the Church, and made him shepherd of the whole flock; it is evident, however, that the power of binding and loosing, which was given to Peter, was granted also to the college of apostles, joined with their head. This college, insofar as it is composed of many, expresses the variety and universality of the People of God, but insofar as it is assembled under one head, it expresses the unity of the flock of Christ. In it, the bishops, faithfully recognizing the primacy and pre-eminence of their head, exercise their own authority for the good of their own faithful, and indeed of the whole Church, the Holy Spirit supporting its organic structure and harmony with moderation. The supreme power in the universal Church, which this college enjoys, is exercised in a solemn way in an ecumenical council. A council is never ecumenical unless it is confirmed or at least accepted as such by the successor of Peter; and it is prerogative of the Roman Pontiff to convoke these councils, to preside over them and to confirm them. This same collegiate power can be exercised together with the pope by the bishops living in all parts of the world, provided that the head of the college calls them to collegiate action, or at least approves of or freely accepts the united action of the scattered bishops, so that it is thereby made a collegiate act. . . .

Bishops, as vicars and ambassadors of Christ, govern the particular churches entrusted to them by their counsel, exhortations, example, and even by their authority and sacred power, which indeed they use only for the edification of their flock in truth and holiness, remembering that he who is greater should become as the lesser and he who is the chief become as the servant. This power, which they personally exercise in Christ's name, is proper, ordinary and immediate, although its exercise is ultimately regulated by the supreme authority of the Church, and can be circumscribed by certain limits, for the advantage of the Church or of the faithful. In virtue of this power, bishops have the sacred right and the duty before the Lord to make laws for their subjects, to pass judgment on them and to moderate everything pertaining to the ordering of worship and the apostolate.  (Lumen Gentium, 22, 27, footnotes removed)

Just as Scripture and Tradition are divinely protected so that they convey the revelation of God faithfully and accurately, so the Magisterium is given by God divine protection so that it faithfully proclaims the truth of God without error.  Therefore, all magisterial teaching is authoritative and requires assent from the Catholic faithful.  And the faithful are also required to submit to the rules and decrees of the Magisterium.

Bishops, with priests as co-workers, have as their first task "to preach the Gospel of God to all men," in keeping with the Lord's command. They are "heralds of faith, who draw new disciples to Christ; they are authentic teachers" of the apostolic faith "endowed with the authority of Christ."

In order to preserve the Church in the purity of the faith handed on by the apostles, Christ who is the Truth willed to confer on her a share in his own infallibility. By a "supernatural sense of faith" the People of God, under the guidance of the Church's living Magisterium, "unfailingly adheres to this faith."

The mission of the Magisterium is linked to the definitive nature of the covenant established by God with his people in Christ. It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates.  (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 888-890, footnotes and number-headings removed)

Among the principal duties of bishops the preaching of the Gospel occupies an eminent place. For bishops are preachers of the faith, who lead new disciples to Christ, and they are authentic teachers, that is, teachers endowed with the authority of Christ, who preach to the people committed to them the faith they must believe and put into practice, and by the light of the Holy Spirit illustrate that faith. They bring forth from the treasury of Revelation new things and old, making it bear fruit and vigilantly warding off any errors that threaten their flock. Bishops, teaching in communion with the Roman Pontiff, are to be respected by all as witnesses to divine and Catholic truth. In matters of faith and morals, the bishops speak in the name of Christ and the faithful are to accept their teaching and adhere to it with a religious assent. This religious submission of mind and will must be shown in a special way to the authentic magisterium of the Roman Pontiff, even when he is not speaking ex cathedra; that is, it must be shown in such a way that his supreme magisterium is acknowledged with reverence, the judgments made by him are sincerely adhered to, according to his manifest mind and will. His mind and will in the matter may be known either from the character of the documents, from his frequent repetition of the same doctrine, or from his manner of speaking.  (Lumen Gentium, 25, footnotes removed)

All the Christian faithful are obliged to observe the constitutions and decrees which the legitimate authority of the Church issues in order to propose doctrine and to proscribe erroneous opinions, particularly those which the Roman Pontiff or the college of bishops puts forth.  (Code of Canon Law, 754)

(For more on the unfailing reliability of all magisterial teaching, see here.)

I sometimes refer to the dissenting Traditionalists as "semi-Protestants", because they, like Protestants, oppose the teaching authority of the Church in favor of their own private (non-magisterial) interpretations of certain aspects of Scripture or Tradition.  The difference between Protestants and Traditionalists is that Protestants take Scripture and oppose it to Tradition and the Magisterium, while the Traditionalists tend to take both Scripture and Tradition and oppose them to the Magisterium.  So they are not Protestants, but they are akin to Protestants, in that, like Protestants, they break up the three-legged stool of Catholic epistemology by pitting some of the legs against others.  (I highly recommend Pedro Gabriel's article, "Sola Traditio", quoted in the quotation at the top of this article, for its masterful way of making this point.  And here is another one I wrote up.)  Since the Catholic faith puts forward the three-legged stool as its foundational epistemology, the Traditionalists, like the Protestants, are opposed to the Catholic faith in this area, and are therefore wrong.

One of the most important and influential founders of modern Traditionalism was Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.  In 1976, Pope St. Paul VI sent a letter to Lefebvre, exhorting him to give up his disobedience to magisterial authority and return to submission to the Church.  He urged him to cease to treat himself as the ultimate interpreter and guardian of the Church's Tradition and to return to trust in the Magisterium which Christ himself appointed for that purpose.  I would urge all Traditionalists, all those influenced by Traditionalism, all those tempted or swayed by it, and all those interested in it, to take the time to read through this letter.  It embodies in a powerful way the Church's response--the response of the Successor of St. Peter, the ultimate guardian of the true faith appointed by Christ--to the whole Traditionalist enterprise.  His words are not just applicable to Archbishop Lefebvre or to the specific movement he directly founded, but they apply to all forms of Traditionalism.  They constitute a powerful, heartfelt, and authoritative exhortation to all the Catholic faithful to give our full assent and trust to Christ himself to define the faith of his Church, and therefore to the ministers he has appointed as the authentic guardians and interpreters of that faith.  You can find the letter here.

P.S. One of the common tactics of Traditionalists is to attempt to pit past statements of the Magisterium against current statements of the Magisterium in order to claim obedience to the Magisterium while disobeying what it actually teaches today (like a child who disobeys mother's commands today in favor of mother's commands yesterday, thereby claiming to be an obedient child in the very midst of disobedience).  This tactic is addressed in the letter from Pope St. Paul VI that I linked to just above:

. . . a single bishop without a canonical mission does not have in actu expedito ad agendum, the faculty of deciding in general what the rule of faith is or of determining what tradition is.  In practice you are claiming that you alone are the judge of what tradition embraces. . . . You say that you are subject to the Church and faithful to tradition by the sole fact that you obey certain norms of the past that were decreed by the predecessor of him to whom God has today conferred the powers given to Peter. That is to say, on this point also, the concept of “tradition” that you invoke is distorted. . . . It is up to the pope and to councils to exercise judgment in order to discern in the traditions of the Church that which cannot be renounced without infidelity to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit—the deposit of faith—and that which, on the contrary, can and must be adapted to facilitate the prayer and the mission of the Church throughout a variety of times and places, in order better to translate the divine message into the language of today and better to communicate it, without an unwarranted surrender of principles. . . . Hence tradition is inseparable from the living magisterium of the Church, just as it is inseparable from sacred scripture.

As Pope St. Paul VI says, there are certain unchangeable elements in the Church's teaching and practice, but there are other elements that are subject to legitimate differing prudential applications by the Church at different times and in different places.  This is something Traditionalists often confuse and distort.  Another thing they often do to support their positions (intentionally or unintentionally) is to take snippets of older Magisterial teaching out of context in order to make it look like it opposes later teaching.  Sometimes this out-of-context-quoting can be egregious, and so I want to briefly call attention to a couple of examples in order to provide a bit of a warning to those who might be influenced by the Traditionalists.  Caveat Emptor!  Let the Buyer Beware!

These two illustrations come from a Traditionalist friend of mine, who was recently trying to argue that communion received in the hand (rather than on the tongue) is inherently wrong and opposed to the reverence required in receiving the Eucharist.  In order to support her position, she gave a long string of short snippets of quotations from earlier documents.  One of those documents was from the Council of Trent.  Another was from Pope St. John Paul II.  Starting with Trent and then moving on to John Paul II, I will give the snippet she provided, and then I will provide the fuller contextual quotation, so readers can see how my friend took her quotations totally out of context to making them say something completely different from what they were originally saying.  Readers who observe what my friend has done will hopefully be made wary when in discussions with other Traditionalists in the future who may try to sell such misleading "information".

Upon being challenged that she was relying on her private interpretations of earlier magisterial writings instead of submitting to the Church's interpretations, she replied, "[I]t is not I that claims it ... As my original post says it, it comes from the Council of Trent among others like these," and then followed her string of quotations.

Here is her quotation from the Council of Trent:

The Council of Trent (1545-1565): "The fact that only the priest gives Holy Communion with his consecrated hands is an Apostolic Tradition."

And here is more of the original context of this quotation:

Now as to the use of this holy sacrament, our Fathers have rightly and wisely distinguished three ways of receiving it. For they have taught that some receive it sacramentally only, to wit sinners: others spiritually only, those to wit who eating in desire that heavenly bread which is set before them, are, by a lively faith which worketh by charity, made sensible of the fruit and usefulness thereof: whereas the third (class) receive it both sacramentally and spiritually, and these are they who so prove and prepare themselves beforehand, as to approach to this divine table clothed with the wedding garment. Now as to the reception of the sacrament, it was always the custom in the Church of God, that laymen should receive the communion from priests; but that priests when celebrating should communicate themselves; which custom, as coming down from an apostolical tradition, ought with justice and reason to be retained. And finally this holy Synod with true fatherly affection admonishes, exhorts, begs, and beseeches, through the bowels of the mercy of our God, that all and each of those who bear the Christian name would now at length agree and be of one mind in this sign of unity, in this bond of charity, in this symbol of concord; and that mindful of the so great majesty, and the so exceeding love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His own beloved soul as the price of our salvation, and gave us His own flesh to eat, they would believe and venerate these sacred mysteries of His body and blood with such constancy and firmness of faith, with such devotion of soul, with such piety and worship as to be able frequently to receive that supersubstantial bread, and that it may be to them truly the life of the soul, and the perpetual health of their mind; that being invigorated by the strength thereof, they may, after the journeying of this miserable pilgrimage, be able to arrive at their heavenly country, there to eat, without any veil, that same bread of angels which they now eat under the sacred veils.  (Council of Trent, Thirteenth Session, Chapter VIII, taken from the Hanover Historical Texts Project website at Hanover College, page number removed)

As you can see, the original quotation from Trent was not addressing communion on the hand vs. the tongue at all, but was only asserting that communion is to be given to the people by the priests, while the priests administer communion to themselves.

Here is my friend's quotation from Pope St. John Paul II:

Pope John Paul II: "To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained." (Dominicae Cenae, 11)

And here is more of the original context of the quotation:

In some countries the practice of receiving Communion in the hand has been introduced. This practice has been requested by individual episcopal conferences and has received approval from the Apostolic See. However, cases of a deplorable lack of respect towards the eucharistic species have been reported, cases which are imputable not only to the individuals guilty of such behavior but also to the pastors of the church who have not been vigilant enough regarding the attitude of the faithful towards the Eucharist. It also happens, on occasion, that the free choice of those who prefer to continue the practice of receiving the Eucharist on the tongue is not taken into account in those places where the distribution of Communion in the hand has been authorized. It is therefore difficult in the context of this present letter not to mention the sad phenomena previously referred to. This is in no way meant to refer to those who, receiving the Lord Jesus in the hand, do so with profound reverence and devotion, in those countries where this practice has been authorized.

But one must not forget the primary office of priests, who have been consecrated by their ordination to represent Christ the Priest: for this reason their hands, like their words and their will, have become the direct instruments of Christ. Through this fact, that is, as ministers of the Holy Eucharist, they have a primary responsibility for the sacred species, because it is a total responsibility: they offer the bread and wine, they consecrate it, and then distribute the sacred species to the participants in the assembly who wish to receive them. Deacons can only bring to the altar the offerings of the faithful and, once they have been consecrated by the priest, distribute them. How eloquent therefore, even if not of ancient custom, is the rite of the anointing of the hands in our Latin ordination, as though precisely for these hands a special grace and power of the Holy Spirit is necessary!

To touch the sacred species and to distribute them with their own hands is a privilege of the ordained, one which indicates an active participation in the ministry of the Eucharist. It is obvious that the Church can grant this faculty to those who are neither priests nor deacons, as is the case with acolytes in the exercise of their ministry, especially if they are destined for future ordination, or with other lay people who are chosen for this to meet a just need, but always after an adequate preparation.  (Pope St. John Paul II, Dominicae Cenae, 11)

As you can see, my friend completely distorted this quotation in order to make it look like it is saying the exact opposite of what it actually says.  (Actually, I'm sure she didn't twist this quotation herself.  She simply took it from some Traditionalist website without bothering to check its accuracy.)

You've been warned!  Watch out for such behavior from Traditionalists (or from anybody, for that matter)!  Caveat Emptor!

Published on the feast of St. Angela Merici