papal infallibility catholic answers

Catholic Answers gives a more thorough explanation on infallibility in their website: Papal Infallibility There are only two doctrines that the Pope has spoken in ex cathedra (from the chair of Peter); therefore, these two are declared "infallible." Are there any reliable sources where I can find examples of when a Pope has taught infallibly? But, as we have already seen, doctrinal authority in the Church cannot be really effective in securing the unity of faith intended by Christ, unless in the last resort it is infallible. In reply it is to be observed that this argument, if valid, would prove very much more than it is here introduced to prove; that it would indeed undermine the very foundations of Christian faith. Serm. Finally, it is altogether untrue, as every Catholic knows and feels, that faith which allows itself to be guided by infallible ecclesiastical authority is less intimately personal or less genuine in any way than faith based on private judgment. Various attempts have been made by opponents of the papal claims to get rid of the only obvious and natural meaning of these words, according to which Peter is to be the rock-foundation of the Church, and the source of its indefectibility against the gates of hell. Unity of Faith was intended by Christ to be one of the distinctive notes of His Church, and the doctrinal authority He set up was intended by His Divine guidance and assistance to be really effective in maintaining this unity; but the history of the early heresies and of the Protestant sects proves clearly, what might indeed have been anticipated a priori, that nothing less than an infallible public authority, capable of acting decisively whenever the need should rise and pronouncing an absolutely final and irreformable judgment, is really efficient for this purpose. Papal Infallibility. In 1075 Pope Gregory VII in his Dictatus Papae (The Pope's Memorandum) put it more bluntly. It is well to begin by stating the ecclesiological truths that are assumed to be established before the question of infallibility arises. I my self am a Christian of Pentacostal practice, and I have certrain reservations about papal infallibility, but I want to here what the Roman Catholic church has to say concerning the subject. (Acts, xv, 28). There are, in fact, many major topics on which it would be impossible for a pope to make an infallible definition without duplicating one or more infallible pronouncements from ecumenical councils or the ordinary magisterium (teaching authority) of the Church. These are well-recognized formulae by means of which the defining intention may be manifested. (c) But before being bound to give such an assent, the believer has a right to be certain that the teaching in question is definitive (since only definitive teaching is infallible); and the means by which the definitive intention, whether of a council or of the pope, may be recognized have been stated above. But many points have been defined, and not just by the pope alone. St. Irenaeus, who in the disciplinary Paschal question favored compromise for the sake of peace, took an altogether different attitude in the doctrinal controversy with the Gnostics; and the great principle on which he mainly relies in refuting the heretics is the principle of a living ecclesiastical authority, for which he virtually claims infallibility. Yet certain Anglicans and all the Eastern Orthodox agree with Catholics in maintaining that Christ promised infallibility to the true Church, and we welcome their support as against the general Protestant denial of this truth. Hello to all! When his own authority as an Apostle was challenged, his defense was that he had seen the risen Savior and received his mission directly from Him, and that his Gospel was in complete agreement with that of the other Apostles (see, v. g., Gal., ii, 2-9). An infallible pronouncement—whether made by the pope alone or by an ecumenical council—usually is made only when some doctrine has been called into question. We assume as antecedently and independently established that God can supernaturally guide and enlighten men, individually or collectively, in such a way that, not-withstanding the natural fallibility of human intelligence, they may speak and may be known with certainty to speak in His name and with His authority, so that their utterance may be not merely infallible but inspired. (a) In Matt., xxviii, 18-20, we have Christ’s solemn commission to the Apostles delivered shortly before His Ascension: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Thus the Fathers of Ephesus (431) declare that they “are compelled” to condemn the heresy of Nestorius “by the sacred canons and by the letter of our holy father and co-minister, Celestine the Bishop of Rome” (Hardouin, I, 1471). Practically speaking, at the present day, and for many centuries in the past, only the decisions of ecumenical councils and the ex cathedra teaching of the pope have been treated as strictly definitive in the canonical sense, and the function of the magisterium ordinarium has been concerned with the effective promulgation and maintenance of what has been formally defined by the magisterium solemne or may be legitimately deduced from its definitions. Such consent, indeed, when it can be verified as apart, is of the highest value as a proof of what has been, or may be, defined by the teaching authority, but, except in so far as it is thus the subjective counterpart and complement of objective authoritative teaching, it cannot be said to possess an absolutely decisive dogmatic value. Such a theory really amounts to a denial of conciliar infallibility, and sets up in the final court of appeal an altogether vague and ineffective tribunal. The only thing one may not do is to deny or change them. One may not appeal to the inspired authority of the Scriptures, since for the fact of their inspiration the authority of the Church must be invoked, and unless she be infallible in deciding this one would be free to question the inspiration of any of the New Testament writings. Even Fundamentalists and Evangelicals who do not have these common misunderstandings often think infallibility means that popes are given some special grace that allows them to teach positively whatever truths need to be known, but that is not quite correct, either. The Catholic Church’s teaching on papal infallibility is one which is generally misunderstood by those outside the Church. Hence the promise that follows cannot reasonably be understood of ordinary natural providential guidance, but must refer to a very special supernatural assistance. cit., IV, xxvi, 5). 3:15), even if individual Catholics might. Apologetics. In other words, it is only bishops who are in corporate union with the pope, the Divinely constituted head and center of Christ’s mystical body, the one true Church, who have any claim to share in the charisma by which the infallibility of their morally unanimous teaching is divinely guaranteed according to the terms of Christ’s promises. iv (Denzinger-Bannwart, “Enchiridion”, 1800), where it is declared that “the doct… One question has me stumped and I came here hoping someone could help me. It is, therefore, a mere waste of time for opponents of infallibility to try to create a prejudice against the Catholic claim by pointing out the moral or intellectual shortcomings of popes or councils that have pronounced definitive doctrinal decisions, or to try to show historically that such decisions in certain cases were the seemingly natural and inevitable outcome of existing conditions, moral, intellectual, and political. It will be best therefore to confine our attention to active infallibility as such, as by so doing we shall avoid the confusion which is the sole basis of many of the objections that are most persistently and most plausibly urged against the doctrine of ecclesiastical infallibility. 1645). If the infallible Divine authority of Christ, and the historicity of His promises to which we have appealed, be admitted, there is no reasonable escape from the conclusion which the Catholic Church has drawn from those promises. That the Church is infallible in her definitions on faith and morals is itself a Catholic dogma, which, although it was formulated ecumenically for the first time in the Vatican Council, had been explicitly taught long before and had been assumed from the very beginning without question down to the time of the Protestant reformation. We, wise after the event, say that he was wrong. For no one can reasonably hold that fallible doctrinal teaching is irreformable, or deny the right of later generations to question the correctness of earlier fallible definitions and call for their revision or correction, or even for their total abandonment. This, too, shows an inaccurate understanding of infallibility, which applies only to solemn, official teachings on faith and morals, not to disciplinary decisions or even to unofficial comments on faith and morals. Again, it is urged by our opponents that infallibility as exercised by the Catholic Church has shown itself to be a failure, since, in the first place, it has not prevented schisms and heresies in the Christian body, and, in the second place, has not attempted to settle for Catholics themselves many important questions, the final settlement of which would be a great relief to believers by freeing them from anxious and distressing doubts. They do not think Christ established a visible church, which means they do not believe in a hierarchy of bishops headed by the pope. 141). Moreover, as in a well ordered state there remains within the law a large margin for the exercise of personal freedom, so in the Church there is a very extensive domain which is given over to theological speculation; and even in regard to doctrines that have been infallibly defined there is always room for further inquiry so as the better to understand, explain, defend, and expand them. In this article the subject will be treated under the following heads: I. If the early definitions of the Church were fallible, and therefore reformable, perhaps those are right who say today that they ought to be discarded as being actually erroneous or even pernicious, or at least that they ought to be reinterpreted in a way that substantially changes their original meaning; perhaps, indeed, there is no such thing as absolute truth in matters religious! It is equally futile to contend that these promises were made, and this power given, to Peter merely as the representative of the Apostolic college: in the texts of the Gospel, Peter is individually singled out and addressed with particular emphasis, so that, unless by denying with the rationalist the genuineness of Christ’s words, there is no logical escape from the Catholic position. Nor is it a charism that belongs only to the pope. Infallibility is not the absence of sin. It is quite probable that the reason why Christ demanded the triple confession of love was as a set-off to the triple denial; but if Christ’s words in this and in the other passages quoted mean anything, and if they are to be understood in the same obvious and natural way in which defenders of the Divine authority of the episcopate understand the words elsewhere addressed to the Apostles collectively, there is no denying that the Petrine and papal claims are more clearly supported by the Gospels than are those of a monarchical episcopate. Nor is this difficulty satisfactorily met, as some have attempted to meet it, by calling attention to the fact that in the Catholic system internal assent is sometimes demanded, under pain of grievous sin, to doctrinal decisions that do not profess to be infallible. An infallible organ may be constituted by the head and members of a corporate body acting jointly, although neither taken separately is infallible. He said to him the third time: Simon, son of John, lovest thou me? It is true, of course, that infallible teaching, especially on moral questions, helps to promote sanctity among those who accept, but no one will seriously suggest that, if Christ had made the pope impeccable as well as infallible, He would thereby have provided for the personal sanctity of individual believers any more efficiently than, on Catholic principles, He has actually done. True Meaning of Infallibility; II. Transubstantiation, the Marian dogmas, Papal Primacy - I believe those. In the next place the infallibility claimed for the pope is the same in its nature, scope, and extent as that which the Church as a whole possesses; nor does his ex cathedra teaching, in order to be infallible, require to be ratified by the Church‘s consent.

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