In AD 866, Pope St. Nicholas I condemned the use of torture for extracting confessions as a violation of divine law. He was contradicted when Innocent IV (who had somewhat less rigid views on the morality of torture) approved its use by the Inquisition in 1252.
Cases like these were once grist for the mill of anti-Catholic pamphleteers—papal contradictions allegedly disproving the dogma of papal infallibility. Well catechised Catholics knew how to respond: Catholics believe the pope is infallible, yes, but only when defining dogma ex cathedra. Innocent IV was simply wrong. As Benedict XVI put it shortly after his election to the papacy, “the Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations.”
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