Is the Pope considered, by his followers, to be infallible?

[armyowalgreens]

[Canuckistanian]

1. Infallible when speaking about Church doctrine

Not EVERYTHING he says.

[JerseygirlCT]

He's only considered infallible

when he's speaking to the church on matters of dogma (that's putting it as simply as I can).

[Posteritatis]

2. In extremely specific circumstances relating directly to church doctrine

Infallibility has only been invoked a handful of times in the entire history of the church, and a few of those were judged retroactively in the nineteenth century.

[vadawg]

5. yup theres a phrase that describes when he is infallable but i cant remember it

basically when this ceromony for want of a better word is invoked then whatever his holiness says is considered as the direct words of god.

[BlooInBloo]

7. "Ex cathedra" - rough translation: "talk to the hand, because the chair has spoken!".

[vadawg]

rofl, yup thats it, i was drawing a total blank...

[Posteritatis]

8. Ex cathedra

Checking further, it's been used once in the twentieth century, in 1950.

[gateley]

3. Deleting my post -- these guys have the correct answer. I was just blathering. nt

[valerief]

4. The Catholic one? nt

[subcomhd]

10. the one that shits in the woods.

[valerief]

12. Oh, the Bare Pope. nt

[JVS]

6. I'm Lutheran, but the understanding I have is that the Pope's infallibility is restricted to...

matters of doctrine and are not applicable if he's not speaking ex-cathedra, which IIRC has only occured twice: the doctrine of the immaculate conception (that Mary was conceived by Anna but did not receive original sin) and the Assumption of Mary (that Mary did not die, but was taken up into heaven alive). Although infallibility is not technically applicable to most statements, Roman Catholics generally tend to maintain a deferrential attitude toward what he says.

[CatholicEdHead]

11. Technically true

but there is a large group of conservative Catholics who take every word as infallible and will defend the Church as such. For an example, check out the Catholic Answers Forum, nothing bad can come out of Rome in their eyes.

[TexasProgresive]

14. And there is a group of ultra-traditionalist who

reject every pope since Pius XXII.

[happyslug]

9. No, it is a very narrow doctrine, only really defined in 1870 during Vatican I

For details see Wikipedia on this doctrine:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility

The Catholic Encyclopedia on this doctrine:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07790a.htm

[izquierdista]

13. I consider him inflatable

Where else could he get all that hot air from?