Category: Papal Infallibility

John Bugay, the polem­i­cal rogue, has not met the dis­si­dent Catholic priest who hasn’t warmed the very tell-tale cock­leshells of his red and beat­ing heart. In his phan­tas­ti­cal efforts to dis­cred­it the Church he reject­ed of old, he turns to the cred­i­ble pens of those who also have reject­ed her. If these dis­si­dent priests con­tin­ue, some­how, to claim they’re still Catholic, all the bet­ter as far as Mr. Bugay is con­cerned. In the lat­est episode of this long, twi­light strug­gle, Mr. Bugay unearths a 1981 book by August Bern­hard Hasler. The title of the book is How the Pope Became Infal­li­ble.

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In a recent post, the polem­i­cal rogue Mr. John Bugay begins with a weird ques­tion. “Over at Old Life,” he says, “a com­men­tater [sic] asked: ‘At what point are we free to con­clude that a cor­rupt hier­ar­chy points to a false church?’ ”Mr. Bugay finds the ques­tion very com­pelling, but I find it dumb beyond the pow­er of words. (Don’t ever be told that there is no such thing as a dumb ques­tion. In fact, the world is infest­ed with them, like gnats or tweets.) At what point are we free to con­clude that a cor­rupt lead­er­ship points to a false coun­try? Or that a bunch of inane posts points to a false blog?

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