n alert reader of the first post in this series may object: “But Alt! Vatican I does not actually define “infallibility,” narrowly or otherwise. All Pastor Aeternus does is enumerate the conditions under which a pope teaches infallibly. But “infallibility” itself is left undefined, as though the meaning is self-evident. Shouldn’t nothing be left self-evident on your blog?”
It is a very subtil reader indeed who will make such an objection. Did the Council indeed say what infallibility is?
Indeed it did, though I did not quote it in the prior article. But in chapter 4 of Pastor Aeternus you will read this:
[T]he Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter that by His revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but that by His help they might guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles and the deposit of faith, and might faithfully set it forth. Indeed, all the venerable fathers have embraced their apostolic doctrine, and the holy orthodox Doctors have venerated and followed it, knowing full well that the See of St. Peter always remains unimpaired by any error.
There’s the definition for you: Papal infallibility is the doctrine that the pope’s teaching on faith and morals is “unimpaired by any error” when it meets the conditions laid forth by Vatican I.
It is also worth noting that Vatican I makes one further stipulation in this passage, which is that a pope’s infallible teaching is not novel. Pius IX did not bind the Church to anything new when he formally defined the Immaculate Conception. Pius XII did not bind the Church to anything new when he formally defined the Assumption. And John Paul II did not bind the Church to anything new when he taught, definitively, that the priesthood is limited to men.
The purpose of infallibility is not to “disclose new doctrine,” but to “guard sacredly the revelation transmitted through the apostles.” There is no infallible teaching that was not part of the deposit of faith from the beginning.
That is why Protestant apologists spend so much time trying to convince people that the Assumption of Mary was unknown in the early Church. If they can prove that Pius XII taught something novel, then they disprove infallibility. And if infallibility is not true, then everything is open to question. So this point matters, and I will be addressing it as the series proceeds.
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For now, however, I want to call your attention to Ludwig Ott’s discussion of infallibility in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (p. 284), because he gives a very helpful anatomy of Vatican I’s definition. Ott was a German priest, theologian, and medievalist, as well as a professor of dogmatic theology, and Fundamentals is a standard reference work in the field (together with the highly respected Sources of Catholic Dogma, by Henry Denzinger). Denzinger’s book was first published in 1854, and Ott’s a century later, but they remain the standard references on Catholic dogma.
Ott distinguishes four aspects of papal infallibility: the bearer; the object; the condition; and the ground.
- “The bearer of infallibility is every lawful Pope as successor of Peter.”
Ott is clear about this: It is “only the pope” [emphasis mine] who is infallible, not anyone else. As long as he remains the successor of Peter, Pope Francis, and he alone, is the “bearer” of the charism of infallibility. Cardinal Burke is not the bearer. One Peter Five is not the bearer. Fr. Gerald Murray is not the bearer. I am not the bearer. Only Pope Francis is.
- “The object of infallibility is the teaching of Faith and Morals.”
The pope’s opinion about Martin Luther, or Maria Goretti, or the president of the United States, or the Boston Red Sox, or the legality of Daniel LaRusso’s crane kick, does not count. If the pope has a loathing for mackerel, or is certain that there must be a highest prime number, those are not infallible teachings.
Ott also notes something I pointed out myself in Part 1: doctrines can be infallible as much as dogmas can. Doctrines—teachings of the faith which, though authoritative, are not divinely revealed—are still “closely associated with the teachings of Revelation.” And as such, they are still proper objects of infallibility.
- “The condition of infallibility is that the pope speaks ex cathedra.”
Ott explains: If the pope is writing as a private theologian, he is not infallible. For example, Benedict XVI made clear that he wrote his series of books on Jesus, published by Ignatius Press, as a private theologian, not as teacher of the whole Church. When Pope Francis gives an interview to the Associated Press, he does not act ex cathedra as teacher of the Church.
The pope must also intend to bind the Church with his teaching. Ott writes: “Without this intention, which must be made clear in the formulation, a decision ex cathedra is not complete.”
Remember, for example, that John Paul II specified his intention to bind the Church when he taught, in Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, that the priesthood is restricted to men. “This judgment,” he wrote, “is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”
That is the language of an ex cathedra, infallible teaching.
- “The ground of infallibility is the supernatural assistance of the Holy Ghost, who protects the supreme of the Church from error.”
Here, again, we have a definition of “infallibility”: freedom from error. It may sound banal to proclaim this as though a lightbulb has gone off. Isn’t it self-evident after all?
It might seem that way until one realizes that infallibility of the kind the Church talks about is of a very specific kind. “2 + 2 = 4” is an infallible statement, assuming we are agreed about the meaning of four terms: “two,” “four,” “plus,” and “equals.” And yet if Pope Francis were to tell us that two and two make four, he would not be exercising papal infallibility, because this is a statement about math, not about faith and morals.
So the particular infallibility we are discussing must be defined more precisely, as something like this: Freedom from error on teachings about faith and morals, made by the pope in the exercise of his teaching office, when he intends to bind the entire Church.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, publishing with a nihil obstat, defines it similarly: “[I]n theological usage, the supernatural prerogative by which the Church of Christ is, by a special Divine assistance, preserved from liability to error in her definitive dogmatic teaching regarding matters of faith and morals.”
Banal as it may sound to spend 1100 words insisting that “infallible” means “a teaching free from error,” you will understand why I have done this when we get to Part 3, which is all about common errors on the subject of papal infallibility.
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