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I have a hard time believing that Pope Alexander VI [New Advent][Wikipedia] was infallible due to many reasons:
he had a mistress
he annulled his daughter's (Lucrezia Borgia)
marriage six times
and he sentenced Savonarola to die;
having been burned at the stake.
How could he be even lucid with
regards to Church doctrines?
Please let me know what you think.
Thank you,
Emilia
{ How could Pope Alexander VI have been infallible or even lucid in Church doctrines? }
John replied:
Hi Emilia,
Thanks for your question.
You seem to have a misunderstanding
of what infallibility is.
The Pope is not impeccable. That
is, it doesn't refer to his
personal holiness.
Infallibility is a gift which protects
the Pope from officially teaching
or defining error as truth in the area
of faith and morals.
That does not mean that he himself
will not violate the same truth he
teaches.
For instance, in Acts 15, St. Peter
definitively declares that Gentiles
did not have to keep the Kosher Laws
or be circumcised in order to become
Christians.
Later, we read in Galatians that
he violates, at very least, the spirit
of this infallible declaration. St.
Paul writes that he had to rebuke
Peter for not eating at the same
table with Gentiles, so as to keep
the Jewish believers happy.
In granting his daughter six annulments,
Alexander was not teaching on annulments,
though he could have been breaking
the Church's doctrine on this issue.
As for Savonarola, again, Alexander
seems to be guilty of a pretty serious
personal sin!! The execution of Savonarola, along
with the later execution of John
Huss, was part of the sad background
of the Protestant Rebellion.
As the Catechism says: anytime there is division,
there is most likely sin by men on
both sides of the issue. This
incident is truly a black eye
on the face of Church history.
817 In fact, "in this one and only Church of God from its very beginnings there arose certain rifts, which the Apostle strongly censures as damnable. But in subsequent centuries much more serious dissensions appeared and large communities became separated from full communion with the Catholic Church - for which, often enough, men of both sides were to blame." (Vatican II, Unitatis Redintegratio 3 § 1) The ruptures that wound the unity of Christ's Body - here we must distinguish heresy, apostasy, and schism (cf. Code of Canon Law, Canon 751) — do not occur without human sin:
Where there are sins, there are also divisions, schisms, heresies, and disputes. Where there is virtue, however, there also are harmony and unity, from which arise the one heart and one soul of all believers.
