Lecture by Fr. Gabriel Lavery, CMRI

Can Catholics resist the Pope because St. Paul resisted St. Peter?

Time and again the recognize-and-resist traditionalists — those who recognize Francis as a true Pope but resist his teachings, laws, and canonizations if they judge them not to be “in line with Tradition” — invoke the incident described in the second chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, in which the Apostle resisted Pope St. Peter “to his face”, as supposed historical precedent and divine approval for “resisting the Pope”.

In a prior blog post, we had already explained, using solid Catholic authorities, why this argument does not hold water.… READ MORE

The case of Galatians 2:11-14…

The “St. Paul resisted St. Peter to his Face” Objection

Time and again we hear from those we call Semi-Traditionalists the argument that a Pope can lead the faithful astray into errors against the Faith through the exercise of his non-infallible Magisterium; and when that happens, it is then the right and the duty of the victim faithful to resist him, clinging to “Tradition”.

Those who defend this position often point to an incident that occurred between St. Paul and St. Peter recorded in Galatians 2:11-14, as supposed historical precedent for an error-teaching Pope being corrected and resisted by his inferiors.… READ MORE