Erick Ybarra on Vigilius + Some Comments

First, an excellent sum up of Pope Vigilius' case (antipapal claim being: he made two infallible statements contradicting). Unfortunately, he ends up attacking Biblical inerrancy too.

Does This One Pope Discredit the Papacy? w/ Erick Ybarra
31st March 2022 | Pints With Aquinas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97b-HbHK-O4

My comments:

9:42 "two Isaiah, five writers of the Pentateuch" ...

According to modern (very flawed) scholarship.

On the topic of the Pentateuch, it holds up in Biblical history. Not identic, but akin to and included in dogma.

10:04 Let's distinguish "infallibility" and "inerrancy".

The Bible is inerrant, but it could lead someone unwary astray, or rather allow someone to twist his understanding of it astray. It's basically for bishops or theologians rather than normal lay men. But the original and at least somewhere preserved version of the text cannot be factually wrong (either dogma or small fact).

The Church is infallible. It could be wrong (in much, but not all of Tradition, as in Fathers) on a fact, as long as the fact did not affect dogma.

Example : nearly all Fathers after St. Irenaeus (the exceptions being some of his contemporaries and only maybe a Gallican martyrology) identify the Beloved Disciple with one son of Zebedee, one of the twelve. As soon as he was an "apostle" in any sense, it still upholds revelation being completed before the death of the last apostle. If he was a Cohen and one of the 72, that's fine, even if most Church men since St. Irenaeus were factually wrong : because they were not doctrinally wrong.

It's like Aristotle's strongest argument for earth being round is sound as an argument even if wrong as a fact : Magellan providing what "Ganges = Gibraltar" lacked.

What matters is, a Gospel written AD 100 and a Revelation received AD 90 on Patmos were received and written with the competence of one who had known Jesus and the Blessed Virgin - and this is correct even on the thesis of Fr. Jean Colson. So, the Church is infallible, but not factually inerrant. However, if all Church fathers, including Papias and Asia Minor ones, remaining there (unlike St. Irenaeus, who left Asia Minor at 16), had said or shown agreement that the Beloved Disciple were the Son of Zebedee, then probably Church infallibility would have provided inerrancy on the case, even if the Church in principle does not have inerrancy.

But the Bible actually having inerrancy is part of Church teaching over the centuries, and "Deutero-Isaiah" and "Yahwist-Elohist +" is not. Unlike the Cohen John as one of 72, this is not compatible with the sources' claims about the authorships.

Other comments:

I

Luke DeMarco

All cards on the table, I’m a Protestant (who, by the way, also happens to be a fan of Pints with Aquinas). To me, conversations like this actually STRENGTHEN the Roman Catholic side of the conversation. I love when each side of Christendom is vulnerable with their shady parts of their history. When we compare our tradition’s strengths with the other side’s weaknesses, we get nowhere in the conversation and the Truth gets convoluted. When Catholics acknowledge the fuzzy parts of RCC history, yet still rationally hold to Catholicism with a good conscience, it shows strength and honesty on their side. It’s awesome to see men like Matt Fradd and Erick Ybarra who can hold to honesty in the midst of complexity, and I’m always grateful to learn from men like these who pull me out of my theological echo chamber. Thanks for your channel, and God bless!

II

Gerald

Matt you should check out the interesting story of Pope Stephen VI and the Cadaver Synod. It’s a WILD story

Hans-Georg Lundahl

And it proves, sedevacantism can be true at times.

I think it was Stephen VI who claimed the see of Peter had been vacant in the day of Formosus.

Whether he was right or wrong on Formosus matters less than the fact that he held it compatible with his Catholic doctrine that the previous "apparent" Pope (apparent from facts like recognition, coronation etc, not on all counts) was in fact no Pope.

Confer some Vatican II:ers who now compare Sedevacantism in all forms to heresy (I think I heard Fr Pine going on that theme).

III

PloopPloop

Count on a Catholic to discredit scriptural inerrancy while arguing for papal infallibility and supremacy. What a joke. Who do you worship? Christ or his disciples ?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Erick Ybarra is a Vatican II:er and therefore, while hoping to be a Catholic wrong about actually being one.

Real Catholics do not discredit or attack Biblical inerrancy. They claim it both for and through Papal infallibility.