Papal infallibility

“ Just a few months before the loss of his temporal sovereignty a great Ecumenical Council of the Roman Catholic Church had proclaimed the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, which declares decrees of the Pope "on questions of faith and morals" to be infallible. ”

“ For it is perfectly well known to every one who is acquainted with the literary works, both old and new, which have reference to this subject, that the advocates of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, as well as its adversaries, appeal to the history of the Church and to its sources. History experiences the same fate that has befallen Holy Scripture. The advocates, as well as the enemies, of every particular Catholic doctrine on which, in the course of ages, dogmatic definitions have been pronounced, have always appealed to Holy Scripture. ”

“ Hence Papal Infallibility is not so much a new truth, or an "addition to the Faith," as some heretics would foolishly try to persuade us, as a clearer expression and a more exact and detailed presentation of what was taught from the beginning. ”

“ For every one of these is indissolubly connected with their teaching office, and contains, whatever be its particular subject, a doctrina veritatis either moral or religious. Papal infallibility is not a robe of office which can be put on for certain occasions and then laid aside again. The Pope is infallible, because he is, in the fullest sense of the word, the representative of Christ on earth, and like Christ he teaches and proclaims the truth by his acts as well as his words ”

“ No recalcitrating bishop now; or if a few worn-out men are still secretly of the old inclining, they are rapidly dying off. The list of the eighty-eight is already a short one. No bishop is now installed who to the old oath which already made him a vassal of the Pope does not add the new articles of the Vatican Decrees. No seminaries are now training priests to deny the infallibility of the Pope, or his ordinary, immediate, and omnipresent authority. In most the Jesuit text-books are adopted. No catechisms are now teaching against Papal infallibility, or teaching ambiguously. ”

“ As we have before observed, Papal Infallibility is an established dogma, an article of faith, and the questions now at issue among Catholic theologians are precisely of the nature of those among all Protestants with regard to Holy Scripture. When a definition of a dogma of faith has been promulgated to the universal church, it is acknowledged as infallible by all; but the Pope sometimes teaches in a less determined species, and then only can even the most lax theologians raise the question how far his teaching binds. ”

“ Add to this the dogma of papal infallibility, promulgated July 18, 1870, which asserts for the Pope "the entire plenitude of supreme power" to determine the faith and morals of Christians, and we have reached a point where it becomes plain to any thoughtful person that the Bible is, from the Catholic view-point, not at all such a necessary book as men have believed. Nor can the faith of a Romanist be a fixed and stable quantity. ”

“ Finally, a complete misconception of the whole question respecting Papal infallibility and its limits underlies and vitiates all the statements of the book on that subject. There is no dissension or doubt existing in the Catholic episcopate in regard to any definition of faith, or any doctrinal decisions whose acceptance is exacted by the Holy See under pain of censure. The Pope and the bishops, as the infallible Ecclesia Docens, are a unit. What one teaches and requires to be believed, all teach alike. ”

“ If the Council at Rome undertakes a definition of Papal Infallibility, it had better determine also the nature and conditions of its exercise. Otherwise endless disputes and similar insecurity will remain. The Bavarian Catechisms spoke only of the Infallible Authority of the Church—that is, of the Pope, together with the entire Episcopate. There existed indeed a Jesuit Catechism, recently introduced into a number of dioceses, which affirmed that the authority of the Church is expressed either by the Pope or by a Council approved by him. ”

“ This sense of the faithful is even one of the motives of the definitions made by popes and councils. It was consulted by Pius IX. when he was preparing to make his decree respecting the Immaculate Conception, and it was recognized at the Council of the Vatican as expressed in the numerous petitions for the definition of papal infallibility. The body of the faithful cannot lose the faith, or any part of it, or embrace any heresy as belonging to faith. Their unanimous consent in doctrine is an infallible evidence of the true faith in itself, and a note of the true religion. ”

“ In view of this temerity, which has not only not been rebuked but has even been defended in Bishops' Pastorals, and with a clear perception of the unhappy consequences that must follow from it, men, who deserve eternal remembrance and will obtain praise of God, have lifted up their voice to remind the faithful that in matters of faith no innovation is allowed, that papal infallibility as distinct from the infallibility of the Church has no evidence of Scripture and Tradition, and that the office of Councils is to investigate and not to carry decrees by acclamation. ”

“ It is no article of Catholic Faith to believe that the Pope is himself infallible, separated from the Church, even in expounding the Faith: by consequence, Papal definitions or decrees, in whatever form pronounced, taken exclusively from a General Council or acceptance of the Church, oblige no one under pain of heresy to an interior assent. ”

“ And since a living judge, sitting constantly in one spot, and therefore always ready to be consulted, is incomparably more desirable as the organ of unerring truth, than an assembly of divines, whom it is often difficult to call together; we are all attention, waiting eagerly to hear in the first place the claims of the Roman Pontiff, and to receive, if possible, such clear and convincing arguments for Pontifical infallibility, that henceforward we shall be able to rely upon it with infallible assurance. ”

“ And lastly, another, that it were much more to be desired, that every man and every woman were so? just as much as the prevention of controversies is better than the decision of them; and the prevention of heresies better than the condemnation of them; and upon this ground conclude, by your own very consequence, that not only a general Council, not only the Pope, but all the Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Pastors, Fathers—nay, all the men in the world, are infallible? ”

“ If he could not lord it over one sphere, at least he could be master in another. In 1869 he summoned a general council at the Vatican, avowedly for the purpose of getting it Definition of the dogma of papal infallibility. to declare his personal infallibility. For although the old rivalry between pope and council had long ago been practically settled in favour of the pope, no council had yet formally acknowledged its defeat. ”

“ And we gather from the tenor of history that such atrocities grow out of events—and events of great importance grow out of creeds—and a struggle for religious supremacy (and the Papacy must ever strive to that end) always tends to persecution; and what shall we say, when persecution is a duty of obedience, and the consciences of the many are merged in the infallibility of a Pope? The history of the Popes shows a frightful list of these claimants of infallibility.
Few who speak or who write on this Papal Aggression approach the principle of toleration with any doubt ”

“ To these various objections against the doctrine of Pontifical infallibility, our defender of the Roman Faith replies by a ready acknowledgment that the great majority of Romanists themselves are of our opinion: that much abler arguments have been urged by them than by Protestants p. 22against this pretension of the Pope: [22a] that by them infallibility is ascribed not to the Roman Pontiff, who “is liable to err, and who frequently has erred;” but to a general Council, representing the whole Church of Christ, and combining all its collective wisdom. ”

“ The papal acts of the primitive ages imply infallibility, according to Manning, "and in almost all cases explicitly declare it." [66] The exercise of authority is everywhere to him Infallibility. Thus the Archbishop presented the English Romanist with a sketch of the first ages pervaded by a calm, unchallenged faith in the Pope's Infallibility. ”

“ He makes the definition of Papal infallibility a monstrous bugbear, and no remonstrance prevails to prevent his making the bugbear more terrible to himself and others. The worst feature in the whole is his passion against the temporal power. He sees nothing in his opponents that is not criminal. ”

“ Consequently, when it is thus made too plain and palpable to admit of fair denial, that the infallibility of the pope is the chiefest and most fundamental dogma of faith—the foundation of the whole system of papal belief—it is positively obligatory upon us, in this country, to understand its full import and meaning. ”

“ At the time of the Vatican Council (1869–1870) he was known to be opposed to the definition of Papal infallibility, and in a private letter to his bishop (Ullathorne) , surreptitiously published, he denounced the “insolent and aggressive faction” that had pushed the matter forward. ”

“ Schulte, and wherein he says I admit Dr. Schulte's 'principle,' is really no question or bone of contention at all between us. On this point the supporters as well as the adversaries of Papal Infallibility are agreed, viz., that the definition upon the Infallible teaching office of the Roman Pontiff comprehends all former as well as all future Popes. No one whatever in the Vatican Council has been guilty of the theological absurdity of wishing to define that only Pius IX. and his successors were infallible, to the exclusion of all former Popes. ”

“ If we take a Pope or Council singly for our guide, we have no security for avoiding deadly heresy; for a Pope or Council singly may be heretical. On the other hand, if we study to avoid this danger by attaching our faith exclusively to a Pope and Council in conjunction, (that is, to the decree of a general Council ratified by Papal sanction,) we fall into another danger, and may reject or omit some necessary doctrine, to which a Pope or Council singly has affixed the seal of infallibility. ”

“ If he does not do this—if he represents Papal rescripts which belong to the province of reversible legislation, or are mere acts of government, as definitions of Popes upon faith and morals, or if from the records of real dogmatic definitions of Popes he extracts mere incidental remarks, obiter dicta, and alleges these to be ex cathedrâ—then assuredly he is leading his readers into error; he is disturbing their consciences without reason; he is arousing the suspicions of governments unnecessarily, and setting them against that Catholic doctrine which has been declared by the Vatican Council ”

“ Such are some of the questions which every candid Romanist must be desirous to hear definitely answered, and which consequently must present themselves with much greater force to every Protestant mind. When a privilege so important as infallibility is understood to be granted, all the circumstances necessary for our direction in receiving and submitting to it, require to be distinctly and indisputably revealed to us. Unless these circumstances are fixed by the same authority that is supposed to make the grant, namely, by Christ Himself, we are as far removed from infallibility as ever ”

“ No infallibility and some infallibility will always be contradictories. The Catholic public may already know that I think the modern opinion of papal fallibility in decisions of faith to be ill grounded and dangerous, and it appears to me that the doctrine of infallibility in these matters, though not decided, might easily be proved to be that of the Catholic Church and therefore true. ”

“ Our endeavours to extract out of these texts infallibility for the Romish Church are as much in vain as in the preceding inquiry for supporting the Papal claims. A general council seems to have as little warrant from Holy Scripture to assure us that it is infallible, as the Roman Pontiff himself. The first quotation refers to the perpetual continuance of the Christian society. Christ assures us that, to the end of time, the gates of hell shall not prevail against his Universal Church ”

“ Important documents well known in France, the collective declaration of the German Bishops of May 1871, the "Pastoral Instruction" of the Swiss Bishops, have already set the principles drawn out in form by Mgr. Fessler before the eyes of such of my readers who are not theologians. People have seen in a general way how these principles have to be applied to Bulls and other Papal documents, of which the adversaries of Infallibility endeavour to avail themselves. ”

“ Strong language has been used, (on some occasions too strong,) by a justly indignant people in reprobation of his presumption; but however strong that language may be, it has not as yet approached the acrimony of the expressions used by Pelagius and Gregory the Great on far inferior provocation.
We have seen that Scripture and antiquity are utterly irreconcilable with the pretensions of the Papal chair. We may now adduce the moral character of the Pontiffs themselves, as a fair ground of presumption that they have not the privilege of infallibility. ”

“ You say, furthermore, “The claim of infallibility for the Pope is incompatible with civil and religious liberty. If the Pope is infallible in all questions touching faith and morals, his authority is supreme, overrides all other powers, and subjects to him our whole life, religious, moral, domestic, social, and political.” ”