Disagreeing with The Pope

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01]So Pope Leo the 14th released his first encyclical this past week and naturally there were a thousand takes within the first 24 hours which is pretty remarkable when you consider the fact that it's over 40,000 words long over 100 pages if you print it off. And I expect that some of you are watching this video in anticipation of my own reaction to the document. So, let me say that I'm I'm actually still reading it and I'm going to take as much time as as necessary to be thorough and thoughtful about it. And if I find I have something to contribute, then I might make a video about it. But in the meantime, I wanted to address this question of disagreement with the Pope because I've seen some, not most, but some highprofile Catholics and publications register their disapproval to varying degrees of this new encyclical. And simultaneously I I saw a post uh in which a young man asked a sincere question about whether he can disagree with the pope just in general if that's even allowed for Catholics.

[00:01:04]And obviously it it isn't just Catholics who get confused about this question. I often see non-atholics especially Protestants discussing papal authority as if Catholics are expected to treat every utterance, every saying from the pope as if it's infallible. as if that's what infallibility means. So, let me start by answering that initial question. Can you disagree with the pope? To which the answer is yes, but with a ton of qualifications.

[00:01:38]>> Let me say from the outset that some well-informed Catholics may think that this is too rudimentary a topic and and just not worth spending time considering for them. But considering how many experts I've seen betraying these principles over the past week, I I think it's definitely worth rehearsing. So the first thing I think we all need to understand and appreciate is that the pope along with the bishops in communion with him throughout the world have a real teaching authority called the magisterium that comes to them from Christ. But not everything they say is part of what's called the authentic magisterium because that teaching authority only extends to matters of faith and morals. So if the pope or the bishops weigh in on questions like I don't know which is worse comic sands or or papyrus uh or or should socks and sandals be universally banished or or whether or not Disney's acquisition of Star Wars ruined your childhood. These aren't questions of faith and morals.

[00:02:36]And so if the pope were to weigh in on them, it wouldn't be an expression of his magisterial authority. But even if it does fall under the categories of faith and morals, that still doesn't mean it's an invocation of the authentic magisterium because he may not be invoking his actual teaching office when he weighs in on certain questions. And this is where this is where things got really confusing under Pope Francis because he had a very sanguine and impulsive temperament which meant he would often speak out and and offer his opinion through interviews and and press conferences and other casual settings that if you know what to look for, you know this this isn't magisterial. It's just the man who happens to be Pope addressing people in conversational settings. Some people liked that. Uh some people hated that. But because a lot of people don't and didn't know the difference or these distinctions, it added to a lot of confusion. Some people thought that every statement in a press conference um which was then turned into a headline with no context was binding on the Catholic faithful when it absolutely wasn't. Another really important distinction is the difference between a universal principle and a specific application of that principle.

[00:03:57]The former is much more often the kind of thing we get from the authoritative teaching office of the pope and the bishops. The latter is much more often a credential consideration but often not authoritative magisterial. So for example, the church can say that murder is absolutely without a doubt evil and forbidden. this would be a teaching of the authentic magisterium, but it can't then go and definitively say that uh what was his name? Kyle Writtenhouse. Um that that when he shot his attackers at I think it was a BLM protest or something like that that that was murder. Because there are all kinds of questions of self-defense, uh proportionality, um innocence of of people involved and the whole context leading up to the event that anyone who isn't an investigator or or a witness just doesn't know about. Another common example of this is we ought to show charity towards those in need. That's magisterial and true and binding. But to then say all migrants are people in need and the way to address their needs is through unregulated border policies.

[00:05:04]Well, that's a prudential application of the former principle and not binding on the faithful. And the reason so many of these credential applications aren't binding is because the Pope isn't an expert in things like economics or political theory or social welfare systems, then all the considerations that would have to be weighed to know if mass migration is a benefit or a detriment to the common good. He might have his opinions on that, but they aren't necessarily more valid than many other experts. What all Catholics should agree on is that we how we organize ourselves politically should be in the interests of the common good. If you think mass migration is in those interests, that's something people of goodwill can disagree on. But whatever your opinion, um, statements from the Pope on how a country should receive or not receive migrants are almost always not part of the authentic magisterium.

[00:05:57]An analogy of this that that could be helpful would be like think of a a general manager at a store um that you maybe work at. He has real authority over the policies and the activity within that workplace, but not everything he says is a definitive instruction about what should be happening. So, for example, imagine again you're an employee and he's walking through the store with you and he somewhat casually says something like, "Ah, you know, at some point we should we should think about replacing these light fixtures." Now, as an employee, do you take that to mean that he just assigned you with this official task of procuring new fixtures and getting on a ladder and replacing the existing ones? Probably not. But if he called together an official meeting of staff and managers and outlined a new project for replacing the light fixtures and then delegated responsibilities with timelines and charts and documentation, well, that would be a pretty obvious way in which he'd be exercising his authority as general manager uh for everyone to cooperate with. So if the pope officially publishes a teaching document with very clear invocations of his authority, then you can be confident that when he does so, it's part of his authentic magisterium.

[00:07:12]But it's also true that something like an encyclical can have a bit of both. It can have authentic magisterial teachings but also prudential applications, opinions, rhetorical flourishes, personal sentiments and uh even sociological observations that don't rise to the level of magisterial teachings. Which is why it's important for anyone studying such materials to know the difference especially if you're going to quote s such documents um as a means of for admonishing or exhorting your fellow Catholics. But even when something is part of the authentic magisterium, there are still degrees of authority that are important to to know about and to distinguish, which in the broadest terms uh are the ordinary and the extraordinary magisterium. So with respect to the latter, anything that might be a definitive teaching from an ecumenical council for example, in which bishops from throughout the world gather together to discuss some pressing concern and provide definitive teachings to resolve that concern with with papal approval. That would be part of the extraordinary magisterium and it is fully binding on the faithful. Our response to that is to treat it as absolutely true without question. If the pope were to speak excra, this would be another example of the extraordinary magisterium, which by the way happens rarely. Okay, the ordinary magisterium does not rise to that level. So it can have certain kinds of deficiencies. So for example, it could have misplaced emphasis or or bad argumentation or it could have ambiguous boundaries between teaching and opinion. So there are degrees here that allow for critical analysis. But it's also important to know that any clear teaching from the ordinary magisterium is owed what's called religious obsequium, which is a Latin word which often gets translated in in a few different ways. Sometimes as religious respect, sometimes religious submission. Uh but however it's translated, it means we owe the teaching real ascent. uh but just not the same confidence as something like a dogma from the extraordinary magisterium. So Catholics can't just say, "Oh, this is just the ordinary magisterium and therefore I don't need to listen to it."

[00:09:25]But it also doesn't mean that we have to look at it like it's impossible for it to have any problems. We should have strong confidence in it and be willing to show it respect or even submission.

[00:09:36]What has been made clear, and this is really important in this day and age, is that if we have some concern about an authentic magisterial teaching from the ordinary magisterium, we can we can offer those concerns in a respectful way with the appropriate channels and appropriate authorities, but we can't just run out into the public forum or or social media and convey our disapproval of some teaching and to try to persuade others to do so as well. There should be a presumption of truth, a humble willingness to try to reform ourselves to those teachings and in an interior ascent, not merely not merely like external silence. And again, this is why it's so important to distinguish between statements that are actual teachings from the authentic magisterium and others which might just be personal opinion or credential judgments, observations, sentiments or rheto rhetorical arguments because those are often not part of the authentic magisterium even if they come from the magisterium. Um like if they're said by a pope or a bishop and though they may even appear within official authoritative documents. So yes, there are lots of scenarios in which we can disagree with the pope. And this is proven by the fact that the church has recognized past errors as such. Even in this most recent encyclical, the pope expressed sorrow for ways the church's past statements have been used to justify slavery. Well, to whatever degree that's true, those statements wouldn't have been magisterial teachings, but opinions or prudential judgments that were proven wrong. In fact, this most recent apology is the exact kind of thing we're discussing.

[00:11:13]It's a prudential judgment and action of a particular application of principles.

[00:11:19]So, if you disagree with the apology, that can be a legitimate disagreement.

[00:11:24]If you think uh the pope's take on some international conflict lacks accuracy or or fairness or nuance, that can be a legitimate point of disagreement. If you think a solution he encourages to stop climate change like going net zero or something like that if that if you think that doesn't properly consider the common good or the impact on the poor or the working class that can be a legitimate disagreement. So in closing I thought I would offer like a helpful hierarchy to try to make these distinctions. So the first question I would ask is is this a teaching on faith and morals and not just an opinion but an actual teaching. The next could be, is it being proposed by the pope and the bishops as something to be definitively held? Are they using that kind of definitive language? The next is, is this something that is repeated elsewhere in the tradition? Have multiple popes said the same thing?

[00:12:14]Because if so, that repetition means it carries way more magisterial weight.

[00:12:20]Next, is it a doctrinal principle or just a credential application of a principle? If the former, it likely requires ascent. If the latter it could be open to debate and disagreement.

[00:12:33]Lastly, is it finalized promulgation of or is it more like a consultative or working document? And this is something we've seen a lot of from the various cenodal operations started under under Pope Francis. Lots of press conferences, lots of published and semi-published documents, lots of leaks, lots of feedback, and lots of opinions. very few of any of it had any kind of magisterial weight behind it. Okay, so now in hearing this explanation, I can imagine that some people might feel overwhelmed by the complexity of making these kinds of distinctions. Like there's just a lot of nuance here, and I'm only scratching the surface given that this is something like a 15-minute video. So, if you're hearing this and that's your reaction, it could be a pretty good indication that humility is your best ally in approaching church teaching and authority. If a lot of this seems foreign to you, and you expect you'll have a tough time making these kinds of distinctions confidently, then you probably don't have the formation, knowledge, or aptitude to justify some disagreement with the Pope or the Magisterium. in which case you'd be much better served by a humble obedience and willingness to avoid weighing in on controversies that might make you an adversary of the church's magisterium.

[00:13:53]At the end of the day, if you disagree with the pope about something and you're right, God isn't going to host a hero's welcome for you just because you managed to detect some deficiency in the Pope's work. But if you're wrong, the consequences can be grave, especially if you misled others in the process. The rewards here often just don't outweigh the risks.

[00:14:20]Hey, thanks for watching that. If you found that clip edifying or beneficial, I would ask you to consider supporting this work by liking, subscribing, commenting. All those things really help in the algorithm. uh praying uh or by joining our community over on Locals where you get exclusive opportunities to interact with myself and others and exclusive content. We're also running a monthly hangout studying philosophy and theology together. So, if that interests you, head over to brianholdzsworth.ca/help or click the QR code uh on the screen.