Almost my first act as I stood on the verge of being received into the Catholic Church, was to buy a book on the worst popes throughout history; followed by a book which covered the whole range – on all the popes.
Armed with that, there could be no disillusions; no blame, no buyers’ regret. I came into the Catholic church with my eyes wide open.
Power and supernatural inspiration provoke a lot of opposition, and the papacy claims both in spades. It may be that the dogma of papal infallibility carries the implication that everything to do with the papacy has a guaranteed supernatural outcome. But this would be too much like magic to constitute good Christian theology. The trouble is that the secular world cannot easily tell the difference.
