In his discussion of Capital Punishment, Pastor Jim references Pope Francis’s 2018 reversal of the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on the subject. Here is an excerpt from a Catholic author, Dr. Edward Feser https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2018/08/pope-francis-and-capital-punishment :
If Pope Francis really is claiming that capital punishment is intrinsically evil, then either scripture, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and all previous popes were wrong—or Pope Francis is. There is no third alternative. Nor is there any doubt about who would be wrong in that case. The Church has always acknowledged that popes can make doctrinal errors when not speaking ex cathedra—Pope Honorius I and Pope John XXII being the best-known examples of popes who actually did so. The Church also explicitly teaches that the faithful may, and sometimes should, openly and respectfully criticize popes when they do teach error. The 1990 CDF document Donum Veritatis sets out norms governing the legitimate criticism of magisterial documents that exhibit “deficiencies.” It would seem that Catholic theologians are now in a situation that calls for application of these norms.
Edward Feser is co-author of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment.
This reminds us, once again, that our Protestant faith does not rest on the words of men, but of God. “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent [change His mind]; Has He said, and will He not do it? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” Numbers 23:19