Doctrinal Controversy
The Vatican’s investigation centred on his 1997 book Papal Power, which was said to imply that “a true and binding revelation” does not exist; to deny that the Church of Christ is identified with the Catholic Church and to deny the doctrine of papal infallibility. Collins was further accused of holding the view that a teaching, to be considered church doctrine, must be approved through the sensus fidelium - the "sense of the people" - as well as by bishops and theologians.
In March 2001 he resigned from his role as a Catholic priest due to a dispute with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over his book, Papal Power.
In explaining his resignation, Collins cited the increasing rigidity and sectarianism of the Vatican, stating that the August 2000 declaration Dominus Iesus expressed “a profoundly anti-ecumenical spirit at odds with the sense of God’s grace permeating the whole cosmos”.
Read more about this topic: Paul Collins (Australian Religious Writer)
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