When can Catholics rightly criticize the Pope — and when does that cross a line? In this clip from The Ben Shapiro Show, Ben Shapiro and Trent Horn discuss papal infallibility, prudential judgments, and the difference between disagreeing respectfully and dismissing the Holy Father outright. They also get into media bias, selective outrage from both left and right, Pope Francis, Pope Leo, and how Catholics should think about papal comments on politics, war, and public policy.
Ben’s channel: @BenShapiro
The Full Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zae1q2Qv1Ls
To support this channel: https://www.patreon.com/counseloftrent
[NEW] Counsel of Trent merch: https://shop.catholic.com/apologists-alley/trent-horn-resources/
Be sure to keep up with our socials!
https://www.tiktok.com/@counseloftrent
https://www.instagram.com/counseloftrentpodcast
Ben Shapiro (00:00):
Joining us on the line is Trent Horne. He is a staph apologist for Catholic Answers and he serves as the host of the Council of Trent. He’s authored a bunch of books, co-authored over a dozen. And of course, he has master’s degrees in a wide variety of fields, theology, philosophy, bioethics. Trent, thanks so much for taking the time. Really appreciate it.
Trent Horn (00:17):
Thanks for having me on again, Ben.
Ben Shapiro (00:20):
So let’s discuss, from a Catholic perspective, where is it fine for people to criticize the Pope and where is it not fine for people to criticize the Pope? Obviously, he’s in a bit of a war of wards with President Trump. Right now, Popes frequently sound off on matters political because the crossover between the spiritual and temporal is not a bright line. And if you’re speaking on matters of morality, that will have consequences for politics. Where is it fair to say, “I just disagree with the Pope. I think that he’s wrong on a
Trent Horn (00:46):
Subject.” Yeah. I think it’s important for people to remember that papal infallibility is a doctrine that only applies to extremely limited number of things that the Pope says and hasn’t been invoked by recent Popes, except in things like the canonization of saints. Otherwise, Catholics are to give the religious submission of mind and will to when the Pope teaches doctrine, says, “This is a teaching of the faith that the faithful are to hold.” But in many other cases, what we have our prudential judgments, and prudential judgments relate to the virtue of prudence. How do we use reason to get to the good? Many times we can try to aim at the good, but as you know, Ben, when liberals try to aim for the good, we often have the law of unintended consequences. Well, we want to get rid of poverty, so let’s raise the minimum wage to $50 an hour.
(01:35):
Well, you’re trying to do good, but it’s very imprudent. You’re not getting to the good, you’re not using reason to get there. So the Pope and the bishops can offer prudential judgments to say, “Here’s what we can do to get to peace and flourishing for human beings.” And other people in different fields and social sciences can offer respectful disagreement of that. All people, but Catholics especially should give the Pope, who’s our spiritual father, respectful consideration of these prudential judgments that are given. But to simply flippantly toss them off as if the Pope is just some guy in Rome, that would be out of bounds, especially for Catholics who owe deference to the Holy Father.
Ben Shapiro (02:17):
So Trent, this is the part that I think needs to be explicated for folks who are not Catholic. And I’ve said that I think that the President criticizing the Pope’s positions or the Pope criticizing the President’s positions. All of that is sort of normal course of business that’s been going on for several, at least a couple of thousand years at this point, actually. Sort of the conflict between temporal leaders and the papacy over matters political. Obviously, the president’s tone when he goes after the Pope should not be the same as when he goes after Chuck Schumer. That is a mistake. I think on both moral and a political level. At the same time, I will say that I’m a little more insulted actually, even than the president using rhetoric that I would not approve of by the people who oppose the Catholic Church at literally every turn, but suddenly are hiding behind the robes of the papacy in order to criticize President Trump.
(03:06):
If you’re a person who is standing on behalf of Islamist dictatorships, for example, if you’re the speaker of the parliament in Iran and you have attempted to exterminate the practice of Christianity in Iran, and now you’re hiding behind the Pope to criticize President Trump. Or if you are a member of the American body politic and you’re in favor of transiting the kids and abortion on demand and all the rest, and suddenly you have a newfound respect for the Pope, I find that a little bit hard to swallow.
Trent Horn (03:32):
No, I agree with that. And this has been a constant problem with secular liberals for decades and not just with the Pope, right? When it comes to Jesus, you’ll have liberals who will gladly quote Jesus when he said, “Judge not lest you be judged,” or they’ll just quote the judge not part, but they won’t quote Jesus when he talks about, for example, that a man who divorces his wife and remarries another commits adultery against her, or Jesus’ teachings about how if you lust after someone, you’re committing adultery in your heart. You’ll have LGBT activists who will quote Jesus talking about love your neighbor and judge not, but not on his clear teachings related to sexuality. The same thing happened with Pope Francis. You’d have liberals quoting him on immigration or LGBT ideology, but then ignoring the Pope when Francis would say that abortion is akin to hiring a hitman, which is something even many conservative pro- life activists and politicians, rhetoric that they won’t even step into if Pope Francis was willing to.
(04:30):
So I agree with you, Ben, that it’s bad when people try to just use the Pope for their own purposes, but that’s something for both the left and the right. I hate it when the left likes the Pope when he speaks about social justice issues and ignores him on sanctity of marriage and human life in the womb, but also people on the right oftentimes will appeal to the Pope on those issues, but not even give respectful consideration to what he has to say about war, for example, or poverty. Even just giving respectful consideration to that, knowing that this is the rhetoric that he has said about the desire to end war and peacefully resolve issues, this is something that we have seen going all the way back to Pope John the 23rd, Pope endick the 15th, even Popes in the 9th and 10th centuries, even during the crusades, talking about war being a failure for humanity, war always being a defeat.
(05:19):
I think the biggest problem here, Ben, is that when President Trump talks about war and the Pope is asked by reporters, “What do you think about this? ” At the very least, if you’re going to engage in these conflicts, you ought to do so with a sober tone when discussing it, not posting on social media about entire civilizations dying and gleefully talking about warfare. It must always be done with a sober mind that human lives are involved in the process.
Ben Shapiro (05:48):
So I do want to ask a question from sort of the outside, obviously, about the way that the papacy is covered. So usually you only see the headlines when the Pope says something that the left wing legacy media really likes, and it’s always hysterically funny to me when from time to time, they will be shocked that the Pope says, for example, the same-sex marriage is still not approved by the Catholic Church. They’ll act as though this is some sort of great shock that the church is mirroring the position that it has taken for a couple of thousand years at this point. How much of the popular conception on the right about various Popes from Francis to the current Pope Leo is a reflection of the fact that we really only read headlines about what the Pope says from left wing media outlets. We’ll read the Pope’s critique of the war, but we may not ever see that headline about abortion because the left wing media doesn’t really wish to cover that in serious detail.
(06:40):
And also, how often does the Pope speak in detail about things like the Iran war? Because it does feel to a certain extent like people are reading tea leaves or vague statements and then interpreting it sort of as they wish. The Pope will say that war is an evil and people will immediately interpret that as that’s a rip on President Trump as opposed to say a rip on Iran. And so how clear should the Pope be issuing more sort of long form explanations of his positions on issues like the war in Iran?
Trent Horn (07:10):
I think that there have been previous magisterial documents, Pope, St. John all the second author won. I believe it was in Santisi Musanmus or previous doc … No, earlier, I think it was Pope Ice 11th, talked about how the moral sphere and prudential judgments, while they overlap, they’re not always going to be identical. So I think it is important for the Pope to not try to think, “Oh, well, he’s just going to be an expert on everything.” For example, I certainly agree with Pope Francis that we ought to protect the environment, for example, and not cause unjustifiable harm to the environment that ultimately doesn’t contribute to human flourishing. That said in his previous encyclicals like Ladato sea, sometimes I had difficulty making heads or tails of what were his actual concrete proposals for what we should do to help the poor to protect the environment.
(08:01):
And similar things about dealing with geopolitical questions, national stability, trade, dealing with armed conflict and how to resolve it. I think Pope Leo really understands that the papacy is going to be limited in many of these practical questions about how to answer these things, but at the bare minimum, the Pope is able to offer just sound advice of saying, for example, no matter what you believe about the conflict, whether you believe who is just or who is unjust, we can all pray for a conflict to end as quickly as possible. Now, how to get it to end, that’s going to be a prudential judgment and different questions are offered. And I think it’s wise for the Pope to step back and not offer, “Here’s my 16 point proposal to bring the conflict to an end.” Instead, he’s encouraging the faithful to pray and to ask their leaders, and hopefully people on both sides of a conflict ask their leaders to bring it to an end as soon as possible.
(08:56):
But you’re right, Ben, that many of these comments that Pope Leo has made in regard to Iran and then the war, they’re usually prompted by reporters that catch him as he’s walking in and out of the Vatican. And then I see them and then he comes and he addresses them. And what I appreciate about Pope Leo in contrast to his predecessor is that he’s much less likely to speak off the cuff and he understands the importance in being exact in the words that he says on these important matters.
Ben Shapiro (09:29):
Well, that’s Trent Horn. You can go check out his work over at the Council of Trent Podcast and of course check out his books as well. Trent, really appreciate the time and the insight. Thank you, Ben.