Pope Abuse Of Power

The papacy has stretched over the course of 1982 years from the first pope Peter the Apostle to the current pope Francis I. There have been popes who have wielded great amounts of power like Innocent III and those who did not wield much power like the modern day popes. There were those who were immoral like Alexander VI and those who were kind hearted with a servant attitude like John Paul II. Throughout the reigns of the 256 popes from Peter to Francis, they were seen as spiritual leaders. For most of them, they were also seen as temporal leaders. Most of the popes held great power over the rulers of Europe and used that for their advantage. The corruption of church leaders and the growing confidence of secular leaders led to a decline of …show more content…
Rulers began to recognize that the pope had no actual power in their land and did not control the affairs of their countries. Previously, rulers in Europe had to pay tributes to the pope and he had a say in the affairs of their respected countries. After Protestant Reformers showed that God does not give the pope the power to rule over the earth in His place, European leaders began to split from the Roman Catholic Church. The real power that the pope had came from the actual rulers themselves. Their obedience to the pope and the obedience of their citizens gave the pope and the Roman Catholic Church their …show more content…
"This was a last gasp from the pope screaming at the European rulers, 'Hey, I'm still relevant! I speak for God!!'" The dogma of papal infallibility states that when the pope speaks ex cathedra , then nothing that he says is flawed or incorrect and is directly from God. The Vatican Council stated:
We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable. So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be