Trent Horn

Yeah, I think it's important for people to remember that papal infallibility is a doctrine that only applies to an extremely limited number of things that the pope says and hasn't been invoked by recent popes, except in things like the canonization of saints.

Otherwise...

Catholics are to give the religious submission of mind and will to when the Pope teaches doctrine, says this is a teaching of the faith that the faithful are to hold.

But in many other cases, what we have are prudential judgments.

And prudential judgments relate to the virtue of prudence.

How do we use reason to get to the good?

Many times we can try to aim at the good.

But as you know, Ben, when liberals try to aim for the good, we often have the law of unintended consequences.

Well, we want to get rid of poverty, so let's raise the minimum wage to $50 an hour.

Well, you're trying to do good, but it's very imprudent.

You're not getting to the good.

You're not using reason to get there.

So...

The Pope and the bishops can offer prudential judgments to say, here's what we can do to get to peace and flourishing for human beings.

And other people in different fields and social sciences can offer respectful disagreement of that.

All people, the Catholics especially, should give the Pope, who's our spiritual father, respectful consideration.

of these prudential judgments that are given.

But to simply flippantly toss them off as if the Pope is just some guy in Rome, that would be out of bounds, especially for Catholics who owe deference to the Holy Father.

No, I agree with that.

And this has been a constant problem with secular liberals for decades and not just with the Pope, right?