Here is a thought that has helped me radically trust in God. At first glance it is going to sound either offensive, or stupid, or naïve, or all three–but it is an important point and it has helped me tremendously, so I hope it helps you too.
Here are some predicates–let’s call them Bus Stops to hearken back to Zippy’s bus stops model. Ride the bus to the stop you disagree with. When you disagree, it is time to get off the bus.
First Stop: The Catholic Church is God’s Church. The Catholic Church is the Church instituted by Christ. There are many other Churches who compete for attention, and many of them have aspects which are good or interesting or helpful, but they are not God’s Church and so when followed through will not lead people to a proper understanding of God. The status as God’s Church is a mutually exclusive claim–there can only be one answer, and all other answers are error. If you agree with this, stay on the bus. Otherwise, it’s time to get off. You may as well navigate away from this article, because the rest of this will be incomprehensible if you disagree with this first and fundamental step.
Second Stop: The Pope–Pope Francis– is God’s Representative on Earth. The Catholic Church is God’s Church, and the head of God’s Church is the Pope, who has authority from God, handed down from Peter, and which rests today with Pope Francis. If you do not acknowledge the authority of the papacy, or if you do not acknowledge the authority of Pope Francis specifically, get off the bus. The second stop follows logically from the first stop. If you acknowledge the that the Catholic Church is God’s Church then you must logically accept that the leader of the Catholic Church is the leader of God’s Church.
Third Stop: On Specific Matters, under a specific invocation, the Pope can speak infallibly. As the leader of God’s Church, The Pope is the highest possible authority, whose authority is granted by God, and whose charge was instituted by God. So the Pope must be able to have the last word and final say on matters of confusion. This idea is Papal Infallibility. Papal Infallibility has been invoked seven times since the dawn of the Church (to my recollection). A frequent misunderstanding is that everything the Pope says is infallible, which is not true. When conditions are just so, and the Pope specifies that what he is doing is speaking ex cathedra, from the chair of Peter, so infallibly, he may do so. If you disagree that the Pope may speak infallibly, if you disagree that infallibility is very limited, and if you disagree that Papal Infallibility is the last word and final say, get off the bus. These again follow logically from the previous stops, so if this is the issue everything that follows will be incomprehensible.
Fourth Stop: Infallible Pronouncements are protected by God because they must be true. If the Pope is going to speak infallibly, and give the last word and final say, what he says must be in conformity with God, which means what he says must be true. The Pope cannot speak infallibly on every subject, the Pope cannot speak untruths infallibly, the Pope cannot create anything new infallibly. The Pope can only say that which is in conformity with truth and so with God. This means that infallible pronouncements are protected by the Holy Spirit, and do not and cannot err. If they did err, they would not be the last word and final say. Remember: Not everything the Pope says is an infallible pronouncements, so not everything the Pope says is protected by God. Only the infallible pronouncements are protected by God. If you disagree that Infallible pronouncements are protected by God, get off the bus.
Fifth Stop: The truth is protected by God, so the Church is protected by God. If the Pope’s infallible pronouncements are protected by God, that means God both preserves truth and prevents error in terms of doctrine and dogma. God is actively shepherding the Church, and the Church cannot formally proclaim error and cannot formally assert untruth. The doctrines of the Church are protected by God and are indefectible. They are indefectible because the doctrines are true and truth does not change. If you do not believe the doctrines of the Church are true, or do not believe the doctrines of the Church are protected by God, then get off the bus.
Sixth and Final Stop: The Church is metaphysically incapable of teaching and compelling error. Look at usury: The Church hasn’t changed it’s teaching, but has stopped enforcing usury rules. The Church is not teaching error, but it has let down it’s guard on this teaching. The Church is protected from ever allowing female ordinations, homosexual marriages, or any other grievous error under debate today. The powers that be can make a lot of disheartening noise, but if we have gotten this far we believe that God will not allow any of that disheartening noise to become a disheartening teaching of the Church.
The protection of the Holy Spirit is the closest thing we will ever get to having plot armor in real life. It is metaphysically incapable of teaching error. If that doesn’t give you profound trust in God and in His Church, then I don’t know what will. The world must be a scary place.
AMDG
Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth 
This is strong stuff, Scoot. The last stop is where many of us struggle to get on – or perhaps many got off and went back to the start, it is the stop for us that leads directly to Heaven or Hell. It leads to the question, “What is the Church?” which you eloquently pondered in your recent post.
No one in their right mind can believe that there will be ordinary and universal teaching among the bishops that sodomy is not intrinsically immoral, that is, that they would attempt to teach it infallibly. Some might think that Pope Francis would attempt to define such a teaching ex cathedra, i.e. infallibly, but that beggars belief because he would (hypothetically) be excommunicated and cause schism at a scale unseen for a thousand years. I’m not exactly crying into my pillow at the idea, even from a game theoretical standpoint.
I think there’s a sort of reverse motte-and-bailey fallacy going on. We say the Church cannot teach error, as defined by infallible teachings. They point to fallible teachings of recent popes and bishops which seem wrong or to pastoral actions which are not sound and when you say those things aren’t infallible they say you are picking and choosing what to accept. But of course, for fallible teachings, the Church itself says they, as fallible, require personal discernment to a greater extent than infallible, and pastoral commands are an exercise of authority, which is not even in the category of fallible or infallible, but have all the same conditions of authority which you’ve written about.
So, this is a valiant defense, Scoot, thank you.
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Hi David, thank you for this thoughtful comment. You make a really interesting point about the reverse motte-bailey defense, I think it really stems from poor education on the part of non catholics on how infallibility works, and poor communication from Catholics about the same.
For example, using the word “teaching” begs a false equivalency. That women cannot be priests is as much of a teaching of the Church as giving alms. I treaded dangerous territory by bringing up Usury, which is obviously a teaching that has been neglected even if the teaching hasn’t changed. Malign neglect can do damage to the Church too. If God is protecting the Church why isn’t he protecting it from that?
The first helpful distinction when talking about this is obviously details about what exactly infallibility is. I sped past that topic in this article and I think I have covered it in more depth elsewhere–possibly a comment–but maybe it is worth revisiting. The second helpful distinction is the difference between the kinds of things that come out of authoritative mouths. When the Pope says “That casserole was divine” he is not imbuing any properties upon the casserole, obviously. When the Pope says “Mary is the immaculate conception” he is speaking in a decidedly different way on a decidedly different topic. And to boot, you are absolutely right that pastoral commands are authoritative decrees and not proclamations of faith and morals, so they must be followed as decrees. If my bishop told me to vote, I would find it a bad edict but I would vote because the bishop told me to. If my bishop told a priest to allow homosexuals to participate in the sacrament of marriage, then the priest would be obligated to decline because it is contrary to the doctrines of the Church.
And that is the final distinction–what exactly are doctrines and dogmas? They are not merely lists of beliefs, they are ironclad truths. This is challenging only because the word “doctrine” has become synonymous with “belief” but it has more force than the word belief. Beliefs you can pick up and put down at your leisure, I believe it’s going to rain today, I believe that casserole is divine, I believe the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. Doctrine say that the Eucharist IS INDEED the Body Blood Soul and Divinity of Christ.
So much of this confusion is sloppy language, bad catechesis, and deliberate misunderstanding. Once all those get sorted out, we arrive at the Thesis I am supporting here: The doctrines of the Church are indefectible, the people are not, we ought to bend the knee anyway.
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