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Who decides who the "right" Pope is? You must certainly know that issues of succession (oh so topically) are often contested, and the Catholic Church is not immune to that.
God does. That's the point. The Catholic belief, which is written into the very doctrine and dogma of the religion, is that God is guiding the process and that God chooses the Pope. The whole religion is based on the idea that Jesus took the wheel and handed it to Peter afterwards who then handed it to the next person. Papal infallibility, as a concept, is the promise that the leadership of the Catholic Church is free from human error so, yes, according to their own beliefs, they are explicitly immune from that.
And that's why this is entirely a circular and nonsensical thing.
Of course it is. But you're the one arguing against your definition of these terms, not their own. From a standpoint of furthering discussion, I'm an atheist. I don't believe any of this. But I know what the religion dictates as the definition of who they are and, based on that, you're wrong about how they view themselves and how they've defined themselves.
Again, history is written by the victors. It "just so happens" that the Pope is the Pope because the portion of the Catholic Church which says he's the Pope has the social, economic, and political power to make that "true." Which would be the case no matter which portion achieved that set of powers; we could just as easily be referring to a whole different set of Popes, past and present.
I'm not talking about how they view or define themselves. If Catholic dogma wants to say that that's what God intended, that's fine. Neither of us has to believe it. If some other set of Popes ended up existing, that would have been "what God intended."
What does this have to do with history? You’re not making any sense whatsoever. We’re not discussing who has social, economic, or political power. We’re talking about the fact that, since its inception, the doctrines of Catholicism define the religion as being led by the Pope, a person who is chosen by God to be his mouthpiece. By their own standard, it is impossible for there to be a “wrong” Pope because God is the one choosing who that person is. Because of this, anyone who claims that the wrong Pope was chosen is themselves wrong because God cannot be wrong and the Pope, by extension of God, cannot be wrong and is infallible.
You might not be talking about how they view or define themselves but that’s literally what this entire conversation and thread have been about. Just because you misunderstood that and interjected yourself doesn’t mean everyone else is wrong. You are.
You're talking about "the Catholic Church and its deity is the very end of any discussion about who is the rightful Pope," and I'm talking about "But it has happened that multiple people, each with their own supporters, claimed to be the rightful Pope at the same time."
When that happens, which one of those is "the Catholic Church"? In the moment, there is no way to tell. Looking back across history, we can see the outcome.
I'm really not sure why this is hard for you to comprehend, or why you're entirely hung up on Catholic dogma.
I’m not hung up on dogma. I’ve simply referred to it because you’re moving the goalposts you set at the very beginning of the discussion by saying that all someone has to do is believe they’re a Christian in order to be a Christian and that idea is demonstrably and unequivocally false.
And no… it hasn’t happened that multiple people claimed to be the rightful Pope because the entire process by which the Pope is chosen when a former Pope dies happens in entirely closed quarters and everyone in the room who votes is bound by the doctrine. There’s no place for anyone to “claim” anything because it’s an election done in view of everyone doing the voting. Whoever gets the 2/3 majority needed is the person that was chosen by God. Full stop. To go against that is to blaspheme and go against both God and his mouthpiece. You can’t be Catholic unless you accept that the Pope is infallible and chosen by god.
I love that you’re trying to twist this as something that I’m not comprehending despite the fact that you’re the who can’t comprehend it and invoked the “No True Scotsman” fallacy incorrectly.
You have utterly failed to demonstrate that.
And that's actually demonstrably wrong.
This makes Urban VI Pope.
Now who is the rightful Pope? Urban VI or Clement VII? If your "full stop" applies, then the answer is Urban VI, even if the French cardinals were correct that his election was invalid. Or do invalid elections not count, which would make Clement VII the rightful Pope?
There's another election - is Alexander V the rightful Pope now?
In 1409, who was the rightful Pope? Was it Benedict XIII, or Gregory XII, or Alexander V?
I have not failed to demonstrate that. You’re just ignoring the responses. By your definition, Satan is a Christian because he believes in Jesus. He’s met him, after all.
False. You’re injecting politics into the question. Based on Catholic doctrine and Papal Infallability, both of which I’ve already agreed are pointless and circular, Urban VI is the “real” Pope since he was the one that was chosen by God. The French Cardinals would have been the blasphemers in this case for arguing that God was wrong in choosing Urban. You can extrapolate the rest from that.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Since Urban VI was the rightful Pope, it follows that the other claimaints were not, and that the successors of Urban VI (Boniface IX, Innocent VII, and finally Gregory XII) were also rightful Popes.
But Gregory XII papacy was renunciated. Even though he was the rightful Pope, chosen by God through election. Doesn't this mean (by your own "rules") that the entire Catholiuc Church as it stands today is not Catholic, because they've all been revering and listening to false Popes since ~1418?
They’re not my “rules” but, yes… By the Catholic’s own dogma, the entire Catholic Church would not be Catholic since the people went against the wishes of God. That being said, since none of it makes sense and the points don’t matter, the Catholics can also hand-wave the whole contest away by saying that God guided it to happen through “mysterious ways” that we don’t understand. Again, I’m not arguing that any of it makes sense. I’m just arguing that, by their own rules, there’s no such thing as a “false Pope”.
Also, the word you’re looking for is renounced. The transitive form of renunciation is “renounced”.
You're arguing pretty hard for something that even you claim doesn't make sense. Now that we both agree that what you've been saying doesn't make sense - which is kind of what I've been driving at - I have to get back to work.
I’m arguing against what you said. Period. What you said was wrong, plain and simple. I don’t have to agree that any of it makes sense to know that what you said wasn’t accurate. And I’m not agreeing that what I said doesn’t make sense. I’m agreeing that Christianity and the rules of Catholic dogma don’t make sense. I don’t have to agree that the Pope is infallible and that people drink the actual transubstantiated blood of their figurehead to call out someone saying that “they don’t think he’s actually infallible” or “they don’t think it’s actually his blood” is not true. Catholic belief dictates a bunch of things that I think are nonsense. That doesn’t mean they don’t believe it.
As long as we both agree that what you're saying doesn't make sense, I'm good.
We don’t.
Yes we do.
No, we don’t. Your statement was that what I was saying doesn’t make sense. That’s different than what Catholics say.
I didn't say you believed what you were saying. I said that you agreed that what you were saying doesn't make sense.
Please, give me another opportunity to quote you.
I’d rather not. I’d rather you were just clear with the things you say. As evidenced by our entire interaction from the start, though, that doesn’t seem to be your forte.
I've been entirely clear. You're the one who decided to take the side that doesn't make sense.
LOL. Yes… so clear that you can’t even make a simple statement like “as long as we agree that Catholicism doesn’t make sense” rather than your entirely unclear response. Unbelievable.
And since you were parroting Catholic dogma, it's just as true that what you were saying doesn't make sense. If you can't comprehend that, that's a you problem.
If you’re going to be that pedantic, I can return the favor. I was saying it, I was typing it. And I wasn’t saying it, I was repeating it. If you can’t comprehend that, that’s a you problem.
Either way, your first statement was wrong and you can’t admit that.