Fallible Popes

So great is the aura surrounding the papacy today that few Catholics realize that it is against faith and
tradition to say a pope cannot fall [ep204] into heresy. The pope was fallible long before he was
infallible. From the earliest times it was taken for granted that Roman pontiffs not only can err but have
erred in fundamental matters of Christian doctrine, Nor did anyone hasten to add in those distant days:
Of course, he only erred as a private teacher or theologian. That suggests that in addition to his own
convictions and his responses to his diocesans he also regulated the faith of the whole church. There is no
evidence for this.