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INFALLIBILITY (Fr. infaillibilite and...
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See also:INFALLIBILITY (Fr. infaillibilite and infallibilite, the latter now obsolete, Med. See also:Lat. infallibilitas, infallibilis, formed from faller, to make a See also:mistake) , the fact or quality of not being liable to err or fail. The word has thus the See also:general sense of "certainty"; we may, e.g., speak of a See also:drug as an infallible specific, or of a See also:man's See also:judgment as infallible. In these cases, however, the " infallibility " connotes certainty only in so far as anything human can be certain. In the See also:language of the See also:Christian See also: The substance of the claim to infallibility made by the Roman Catholic Church is that the Church and the pope cannot errwhen solemnly enunciating, as binding on all the faithful, a decision on a question of faith or morale. The infallibility of the Church, thus limited, is a necessary outcome of the fundamental conception of the Catholic Church and its See also:mission. Every society of men must have a supreme authority, whether individual or collective, empowered to give a final decision in the controversies which concern it. A community whose mission it is to See also:teach religious truth, which involves on the See also:part of its members the See also:obligation of belief in this truth, must, if it is not to fail of its See also:object, possess an-authority capable of maintaining the faith in its purity, and consequently capable of keeping it See also:free from and condemning errors. To perform this See also:function without fear of error, this authority must be infallible in its own See also:sphere. The Christian Church has expressly claimed this infallibility for its formal dogmatic teaching. In the very earliest centuries we find the episcopate, See also:united in See also:council, See also:drawing up symbols of faith, which every believer was See also:bound to accept under See also:pain of exclusion, condemning heresies, and casting out heretics. From See also:Nicaea and See also:Chalcedon to See also:Florence and See also:Trent, and to the present See also:day, the Church has excluded from her communion all those who do not profess her own faith, i.e. all the religious truths which she represents and imposes as obligatory. This is infallibility put into practice by definite acts. The infallibility of the pope was not defined until 187o at the Vatican Council; this See also:definition does not constitute, strictly speaking, a dogmatic innovation, as if the pope had not hitherto enjoyed this privilege, or as if the Church, as a whole, had admitted the contrary; it is the newly formulated definition of a See also:dogma which, like all those defined by the Councils,continued to grow into an ever more definite See also:form, ripening, as it were, in the always living community of the Church. The exact See also:formula for the papal infallibility is given by the Vatican Council in the following terms (Constit. Pastor aeternus, cap. iv.); " we teach and define as a divinely revealed dogma, that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra—i.e. when, in his See also:character as Pastor and See also:Doctor of all Christians, and in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he See also:lays down that a certain doctrine concerning faith or morals is binding upon the universal Church, —possesses, by the Divine assistance which was promised to him in the person of the blessed See also:Saint Peter, that same infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer thought See also:fit to endow His Church, to define its doctrine with regard to faith and morals; and, consequently, that these See also:definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable in themselves, and not in consequence of the consent of the Church." A few notes will suffice to elucidate this pronouncement. (a) As the Council expressly says, the infallibility of the pope is not other than that of the Church; this is a point which is too often forgotten or misunderstood. The pope enjoys it in person, but solely qua head of the Church, and as the authorized See also:organ of the ecclesiastical See also:body. For this exercise of the primacy as for the others, we must conceive of the pope and the episcopate united to him as a continuation of the Apostolic See also:College and its head Peter. The head of the College possesses and exercises by himself alone the same See also:powers as the College which is united with him; not by delegation from his colleagues, but because he is their established See also:chief. The pope when teaching ex cathedra acts as head of the whole episcopal body and of the whole Church. (b) If the Divine constitution of the Church has not changed in its essential points since our See also:Lord, the mode of exercise of the various powers of its head has varied; and that of the supreme teaching See also:power as of the others. This explains the See also:late date at which the dogma was defined, and the assertion that the dogma was already contained in that of the papal primacy established by our Lord himself in the person of St Peter. A certain dogmatic development is not denied, nor an See also:evolution in the direction of a centralization in the hands of the pope of the exercise of his powers as See also:primate; it is merely required that this evolution should be well understood and considered as legitimate. (c) As a See also:matter of fact the infallibility of the pope, when giving decisions in his character as head of the Church, was generally admitted before the Vatican Council. The only See also:reservation which the most advanced Gallicans dared to formulate, in the terms of the celebrated See also:declaration of the See also:clergy of See also:France (1682), had as its object the irreformable character of the pontifical definitions, which, it was claimed, could only have been acquired by them through the assent of the Church. This doctrine, rather See also:political than theological, was a survival of the errors which had come into being after the See also:Great See also:Schism, and especially at the council of See also:Constance; its object was to put the Church above its head, as the council of Constance had put the ecumenical council above the pope, as though the council could be ecumenical without its head. In reality it was See also:Gallicanism alone which was condemned at the Vatican Council, and it is Gallicanism which is aimed at in the last phrase of the definition we have quoted. (d) Infallibility is the guarantee against error, not in all matters, but only in the matter of dogma and morality; every-thing else is beyond its power, not only truths of another See also:order, but even discipline and the ecclesiastical See also:laws, See also:government and See also:administration, &c.
(e) Again, not all dogmatic teachings of the pope are under the guarantee of infallibility; neither his opinions as private instructor, nor his See also:official allocutions, however authoritative they may be, are infallible; it is only his ex cathedra instruction which is guaranteed; this is admitted by everybody.
But when does the pope speak ex cathedra, and how is it to be distinguished when he is exercising his infallibility? As to this point there are two See also:schools, or rather two tendencies, among Catholics: some extend the privilege of infallibility to all official exercise of the supreme magisterium, and declare infallible, e.g. the papal encyclicals.' Others, while recognizing the supreme authority of the papal magisterium in matters of doctrine, confine the infallibility to those cases alone in which the pope chooses to make use of it, and declares positively that he is imposing on all the faithful the obligation of belief in a certain definite proposition, under pain of See also:heresy and exclusion from the Church; they do not insist on any special form, but only require that the pope should clearly See also:manifest his will to the Church. This second point of view, as clearly expounded by Mgr See also:Joseph See also:Fessler (1813-1872), See also:bishop of St Polten, who was secretary to the Vatican Council, in his See also:work See also:Die wahre and die falsche Unfehlbarkeit der Papste (See also:French trans. La vraie et la fausse infaillibilite, See also:Paris, 1873), and by See also:Cardinal See also:Newman in his " See also:Letter to the See also:Duke of See also:Norfolk," is the correct one, and this is clear from the fact that it has never been blamed by the ecclesiastical authority. Those who hold the latter See also:opinion have been able to assert that since the Vatican Council no infallible definition had yet been formulated by the popes, while recognizing the supreme authority of the encyclicals of See also:Leo XIII.
It is remarkable that the definition of the infallibility of the . pope did not appear among the projects (schemata) prepared for the deliberations of the Vatican Council (1869). It doubtless arose from the proposed forms for the definitions of the primacy and the pontifical magisterium. The See also:chapter on the infallibility was only added at the See also:request of the bishops and after See also:long hesitation on the part of the cardinal presidents. The proposed form, first elaborated in the conciliary See also:commission de fide, was the object of long public discussions from the 5oth general See also:congregation (May 13th, 187o) to the 85th (See also:July 13th); the constitution as a whole was adopted at a public session, on the 18th, of the 535 bishops present, two only replied " Non placet "; but about 50 had preferred not to be present. The controversies
It was in this sense that it was understood by Dellinger, who pointed out that the definition of the dogma would commit the Church to all past official utterances of the popes, e.g. the See also:Syllabus of 1864, and therefore to a See also: This view was embodied in the circular See also:note to the Powers, See also:drawn up by Dellinger and issued by the Bavarian See also:prime See also:minister See also:Prince See also:Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst on See also:April 9, 1869. It was also the view universally taken by the See also:German governments which supported the Kulturkampf in a greater or less degree.—ED.occasioned by this question had started from the very beginning of the Council, and were carried on with great bitterness on both sides. The minority, among whom were prominent Cardinals Rauscher and See also:Schwarzenberg, See also:Hefele, bishop of See also:Rotterdam (the historian of the councils) Cardinal Mathieu, Mgr See also:Dupanloup, Mgr See also:Maret, &c., &c., did not pretend to deny the papal infallibility; they pleaded the inopportuneness of the definition and brought forward difficulties mainly of an See also:historical order, in particular the famous condemnation of Pope See also:Honorius by the 6th ecumenical council of See also:Constantinople in 680. The See also:majority, in which Cardinal See also:Manning played a very active part, took their stand on theological reasons of the strongest kind; they invoked the promises of Our Lord to St Peter: " See also:Thou See also:art Peter, and upon this See also:rock will I build my Church, and the See also:gates of See also:hell shall not prevail against her "; and again, " I have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not; and do thou in thy turn confirm thy brethren "; they showed the popes, in the course of the ages, acting as the guardians and See also:judges of the faith, arousing or welcoming dogmatic controversies and authoritatively settling them, exercising the `Supreme direction in the councils and sanctioning their decisions; they explained that the few historical difficulties did not involve any dogmatic defect in the teaching of the popes; they insisted upon the See also:necessity of a supreme tribunal giving judgment in the name of the whole of the scattered Church; and finally, they considered that the definition had become opportune for the very reason that under the pretext of its inopportuneness the doctrine itself was being attacked. The definition once proclaimed, controversies rapidly ceased; the bishops who were among the minority one after the other formulated their loyal See also:adhesion to the Catholic dogma. The last to do so in See also:Germany was Hefele, who published the decrees of the loth of April 1871, thus breaking a long friendship with Dellinger; in See also:Austria, where the government had thought See also:good to revive for the occasion the royal placet, Mgr Haynald and Mgr See also:Strossmayer delayed the publication, the former till the 15th of See also:September 1871, the latter till the 26th of See also:December 1872. In France the adhesion was rapid, and the publication was only delayed by some bishops in consequence of the disastrous See also:war with See also:Prussia. Though no bishops abandoned it, a few priests, such as See also:Father Hyacinthe Loyson, and a few scholars at the German See also:universities refused their adhesion. The most distinguished among the latter was Dellinger, who resisted all the advances of Mgr See also:Scherr, See also:archbishop of See also:Munich, was excommunicated on the 17th of April 1871, and died unreconciled, though without joining any See also:separate See also:group. After him must be mentioned See also:Friedrich of Munich, several professors of See also:Bonn, and See also:Reinkens of See also:Breslau, who was the first bishop of the " Old Catholics." These professors formed the " See also:Committee of Bonn," which organized the new Church. It was recognized and protected first in See also:Bavaria, thanks to the minister Freiherr Johann von Lutz, then in See also:Saxony, See also:Baden, See also:Wurttemberg, Prussia, where it was the pretext for, if not the cause of, the Kulturkampf, and finally in See also:Switzerland, especially at See also:Geneva. For the theological aspects of the dogma of infallibility, see, among many others, L. Billot, S.J., De See also:Ecclesia Christi (3 vols., Rome, 1898–1900) ; or G. Wilmers, S.J. De Christi Ecclesia (See also:Regensburg, 1897). The most accessible popular work is that of Mgr Fessler already mentioned. For the See also:history of the definition see VATICAN COUNCIL; also PAPACY, GALLICANISM, See also:FEBRONIANISM, OLD CATHOLICS, &C. (A. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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