From Garry Wills' Why I Am A Catholic:
Since Peter contradicted himself, should you tell him, "We refuse to hear what you are saying because you once said the opposite"? If … one position was held while truth was being sought, and a different position was adopted after truth had been found, why should a change of position be considered a crime in this [Roman] See, which is humbly venerated by all in the person of its founder? One should not blame change in one's stand but inability to take a stand. So if the mind is firmly intent on seeking the truth, why will you criticize it when it sheds ignorance and fashions a better statement of the truth?
This was written by the future Pope Gregory the Great in the name of his predecessor, Pope Pelagius (to whom he was deacon), in the year 585 AD. It's a refreshing but rare example of a pope actually admitting that the Church could be mistaken about something or other.
This was a time when Byzantine emperors installed popes and patriarchs, convened ecumenical councils, and directed church doctrine. The Roman Church had some measure of independence, by virtue of its distance from Constantinople and its conquest by (Christian) Germanic tribes, but it could still be controlled by the eastern emperors. In this case, the emperor (and empress) had been imposing the heresy of monophysitism on the various eastern and western churches by deposing popes and patriarchs and installing ones who would accept the monophysites. Popes who rebelled were removed.
It is interesting to note that prior to this time the Church was led in concert by the seven original apostolic communities—Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, and Rome—with Rome, the only apostolic church in the west, being somewhat of an intellectual backwater with little influence on or participation in the formation of doctrine. Constantine and his successors gave prominence to the non-apostolic see of Constantinople, and thus concentrated their control over the Church, and further "demoting" Rome.
This is one book where the plot thickens and keeps on thickening. Due to my woeful ignorance of Church history I don't know exactly how it ends, so it makes for an exciting read.
