[hackyhacky]

If you're a Catholic, then the choice of interpretation is clear: you must accept the Pope's interpretation. That's what it means to be Catholic. The Pope is God's representative on Earth. To defy him is to defy God.

The alternative would be to declare him a False Pope and to select an alternative divine representative. Of course, that would make you a heretic. If you ditch the pope as soon as he says something you don't like, you're not much of a Catholic. The Church is not a democracy.

[michaelsbradley]

> If you're a Catholic, then the choice of interpretation is clear: you must accept the Pope's interpretation…

cf. Hyperpapalism

Thankfully, Hyperpapalism is a misunderstanding of the role of the teaching-governing authority of the Bishop of Rome, and Catholics can be and remain good Catholics while disagreeing with the Pope on a variety of matters.

[hackyhacky]

I never said that you can't disagree with him. I said you can't defy him.

You have a right to your opinion. You don't have a right to apply your interpretation of doctrine in place of the Holy See's. That's heresy.

[michaelsbradley]

Pope John XXII publicly taught erroneously re: death and the Beatific Vision. Jean Gerson threatened to burn him at the stake and in general there was much public resistance, from royalty to common folk.

[hackyhacky]

"Erroneous" is an opinion. Papal doctrine is the word of God until a subsequent pope says otherwise. Jean Gerson is entitled to his opinion, even if speaking that opinion made him a heretic.

[michaelsbradley]

> Papal doctrine is the word of God until a subsequent pope says otherwise

No, that’s Hyperpapalism, which is an error.

The Pope does not have the authority-power to transform error into truth, nor can he make “new truths” (of the Faith), whatever that might mean. He does have the solemn duty to faithfully hand on and explain the Apostolic Tradition. In an extra-ordinary act of his office, the Pope can, without error, define the proper understanding of Catholic teaching on a matter of faith or morals.

In the case of John XXII he proposed something false as pertains to Catholic doctrine, repeatedly, in public sermons. He was rebuked for it and recanted before he died. What he taught was not somehow “intermittently true”, it was an error through and through, and it was completely right that his subjects called him out on the matter.

[hackyhacky]

> No, that’s Hyperpapalism, which is an error.

> The Pope does not have the authority-power to transform error into truth,

The problem with your argument is that it is "left as an exercise for the reader" to determine what is actually true. If that were the case, then the Pope, as the representative of God on Earth, serves no purpose: everyone can individually determine what is true and what is an error. That does not agree historically with the role of the papacy.

If everyone has a right to their own interpretation of doctrine, what does the Pope do, and why should anyone listen to him?

Your position that absolute faith in the word of the pope is a fallacy is itself a self-supporting fallacy, which you hold only because you don't believe in the correctness of the pope.

> he taught was not somehow “intermittently true”

Yes, it was. God would not allow a Pope who spoke in error.