INFALLIBILITY. - It is that supernatural prerogative by which the Church and the Pope cannot err in professing and defining revealed doctrine, through a special divine assistance. Infallibility excludes not only error of fact, but also error of law, eliminating every possibility of deviation in the doctrinal field.
The infallibility of the Church differs from that of God, from which it derives by participation; it implies neither the manifestation of new truths, nor a supernatural impulse to write, but a divine assistance (attributed to the Holy Spirit) that directs the whole of ecclesiastical teaching with negative and positive interventions, preventing the definitive formulation of false judgments and guiding the minds of the teaching body toward the right understanding and re-elaboration of the revealed datum. Through this assistance the infallibility of the believer is also guaranteed, since he adheres to the doctrine proposed to his faith by an infallible magisterium. Divine assistance does not exclude the human means of researching revealed truth and its developments, but presupposes them, promotes them and preserves them from deviations in their final result. Infallibility is therefore not the omniscience, the impeccability, the habitual thaumaturgy of the Pope, nor the hypostatic union of all the bishops with the Holy Spirit, as it is not rarely presented by Protestants.
The infallibility of the Church, in general, has never been formally defined as a dogma, but it must undoubtedly be admitted as a revealed truth proposed by the ordinary and universal magisterium; it is presupposed by the Vatican Council in the definition of the infallibility of the Pope (constitution Pastor aeternus, ch. 4; Denz-U, 1839); it can be established, with complete certainty, from the examination of the New Testament texts and from primitive tradition.
1) The Church, in the New Testament, appears invested with the same mission and the same power as Christ. Now the mission and power of Christ had as their object the preaching of the doctrine received from the Father: cf. Mt. 18:18; 28:18-20; Mk. 16:15-16, 20; Lk. 10:16; Rom. 1:5; I Cor. 1:17; II Cor. 5:20; 10:4; I Tim. 1:19; I Jn. 2:24; II Jn. 1:10.
2) The texts of the solemn investiture of Christ's powers upon the Apostles (Mt. 28:18-20 and Mk. 16:15-16), beyond the general mission to teach with the task of "making disciples," promise an efficacious assistance, whose limits of time are the same as the duration of the present world. "I am with you," and, in biblical usage, is a divine assurance of the good outcome of the mission entrusted by God to his messengers, a mission which in the cited texts is the preservation and oral teaching of the Gospel.
3) Jesus Christ threatens eternal damnation to whoever will not believe the apostolic preaching (Mk. 16:16); an absurd threat if the magisterium of the Church could be conceived as being in disharmony with the doctrine of the Master.
4) Jesus also indicated the supernatural cause of infallibility, pointing to it in the Spirit of truth, who, possessed and operative, will assist the Apostles, as his witnesses and interpreters of his doctrine, enlightening them, sanctifying them in all truth, making them one thing with him and with the Father (Lk. 24:48-49; Jn. 14:16 ff. 26; 15:26; 16:7-14; 17:17; Acts 1:8 and 2:4).
5) The Apostles, moreover, appear fully aware of their infallibility (Acts 5:32; 15:28) and transmit their powers to their successors (I Tim. 4:11-16; II Tim. 2:2; Tit. 1:5) according to a law of succession clearly attested by St. Clement of Rome (Cor., 44, 1) and already contemplated in the promises of Jesus.
6) The Fathers closest to the Apostles echo the same teaching. For St. Ignatius of Antioch the bishops are the doctrine of Christ itself, as the latter is the doctrine of the Father; the faithful must be united to it (Ephes., 3, 2; cf. Philadelp., 3, 2). For St. Irenaeus the apostolic doctrine, handed down through the succession of bishops, is the criterion for discerning truth from heresy (Adv. haer., 1, 10, 1; 3, 3, 1; 3, 4, 1).
But the episcopal College, heir to the powers of the apostolic College, infallible both in the solemn definitions of councils (v.) and in the ordinary and universal magisterium (v. MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH), carries out its mission of teaching only in subordination to its head, according to the divine institution of the primacy, which therefore contains, in its very nature, infallibility, an attribute inseparable from the universal magisterium. The pope is indeed the only immediate or direct subject, or the source, with respect to the Church, of infallibility, according to the theological speculation prevalent today, hinted at also by a text of the Mystici corporis (AAS, 35 [1943], p. 216), and already formulated thus by the Passionist theologian Giacomo del S. Cuor di Maria: "The pope is not infallible of himself, but from him, Jesus; nevertheless the pope is infallible for himself, as for himself Jesus Christ is infallible. Whereas the Church is not infallible either of herself or for herself but from Christ through the pope." The conclusion springs from the universal character of papal teaching, since where there is ecumenical teaching in all its intensity, there too is the exercise of infallibility. For this reason the biblical texts that establish the primacy also bear witness to pontifical infallibility. Thus in Mt. 16:18-19 the three parallel images of foundation, of key-bearer, of binder and looser, in the function of vicar of Christ, authenticated in his decisions by Heaven, assign to Peter, along with the other sovereign powers, also that of the supreme magisterium. In Jn. 21:15-17 the charge to feed the entire flock of Christ is indicated even more explicitly. A specific indication of pontifical infallibility is found in Lk. 22:31-32. Jesus has just responded to the disputes of the Twelve about the primacy, inculcating in them the new spirit of authority (24-27), when he entrusts to Peter, repeating earlier designations, the office of confirming all the brothers in the faith. It seems an application of Mt. 16:18-19, a particular of the struggle there announced between the Church and the powers of hell. Many Fathers and the Vatican Council have seen in this text the clear affirmation of pontifical infallibility (constitution Pastor aeternus, ch. 4; Denz-U, 1836).
St. Irenaeus in a celebrated text (Adv. haer., 3, 3, 2) openly affirms the supreme magisterium of the Roman Church, personified in its bishops, root of the doctrinal unity of the universal Church, summing up in itself the qualifications of witness, guardian and organ of apostolic Tradition, of the fullest criterion of truth against all heresies, comparable to the consent of all the apostolic Churches together (v. C. Mohrmann, A propos de Irenaeus 3, 3, 2, in Vigiliae Christianae, 3 [1949], pp. 57-61: new interpretation of the passage, which increases its probative value). Tertullian is forced to note, against his will, that the bishop of Rome is recognized as the arbiter of ecumenical communion and orthodoxy (Adv. Prax., 1).
Particularly attested from the first Christian centuries is the custom of recourse to Rome whenever any danger to the faith arose, as the pontifical interventions against heresies are numerous and decisive. The cases of St. Dionysius of Alexandria, of Pelagianism, of Nestorianism and of Monophysitism, with the decisions of the popes St. Innocent I, St. Zosimus, St. Boniface I, St. Celestine I and St. Leo the Great, as well as the formula of St. Hormisdas are among the best known and most demonstrative (Denz-U, 100, 109, 110, 112, 149, 171).
After a recognition that in the West can be considered almost uninterrupted, one arrives at the Second Council of Lyons (1274), which proclaims the pope "definitive judge of questions concerning the faith" (Denz-U, 466). The conciliarist parenthesis (v. CONCILIARISM) might have seemed closed when the Council of Florence (1445) called the pope "supreme Doctor of all Christians," endowed with full power (Denz-U, 694), but on the contrary the error spread widely (v. H. Iedin, Storia del Concilio di Trento, I, Brescia 1949, pp. 34-53) and Gallicanism (v.) persisted in the dangerous path by affirming that the pope is not infallible "nisi Ecclesiae consensus accesserit" (Denz-U, 1325). It fell to the Vatican Council (1870) to solemnly reaffirm Tradition and to explain the phrase ex cathedra within a better-defined framework, thus excluding the exaggerations and uncertainties of certain infallibilists (Denz-U, 1832-40).
The ex cathedra definition, the only case in which, strictly speaking, there is an exercise of pontifical infallibility, occurs only when the pope pronounces with a manifestly definitive judgment intended for the whole Church, bringing into play his entire ecumenical doctrinal power.
Infallibility in the Pope is a personal prerogative, not because as a private person he is guaranteed against error or heresy — a question left open — but in the sense that each of Peter's successors is infallible, without exception, and not merely the series or the Roman See considered as a moral entity, according to the claims of certain Gallicans. It could also be called personal, with more positive intent, in order to exclude its communicability: it cannot, in fact, be delegated. It was and sometimes still is called "absolute" and "separate," terms rejected by many, admissible only in the historical function of excluding the condition of the Church's consent, under which condition (which would undermine it at the root) even the last Gallicans were prepared to accept it, and they attempted, but in vain, to introduce at least an allusion to it in the Vatican definition.
The Vatican Council, however, did not define the object of pontifical infallibility, limiting itself to declaring it identical to that of the Church's infallibility, which some Fathers would have wished to be defined first. On this subject, however, there are precise indications from the ordinary magisterium and a doctrine well elaborated by theologians.
It must be held as of faith that the Church is infallible in teaching whatever is explicitly or implicitly revealed, according to the understanding of explicit and implicit most common in present-day theology. The custody, explanation and proposition of the doctrine of the Divine Master himself was in fact entrusted to the apostolic magisterium. The extent of this object is clearly indicated in the very terms that guarantee infallibility: within its scope stand "every truth" revealed to the Apostles by the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26; 16:13), "the whole preaching" of Jesus (Mt 28:20), "the words of Jesus which came from the Father" (Jn 17:6-8), "the Gospel of the Kingdom" (Mt 24:14; 26:13). Logically included in it is infallibility in the condemnation of heresy (v.), which stands in contradictory opposition to revealed Truth. By this prerogative the Church can also infallibly fix the canon of Sacred Scripture, declare the extent of biblical inspiration, define the sense of a dogmatic biblical text, choose suitable dogmatic formulas, etc. All this is called by the majority of modern theologians the direct or primary object of infallibility.
Under the secondary object are grouped those things which by a generic term are called "connected truths." These are not formally found in Revelation, but are so closely linked to it that they may be said to be virtually contained in it. Error concerning these applications of the revealed principle would shake the very foundations on which they rest and would endanger the faith. The connected truths must therefore be considered present in the mind of the Divine Master at the moment of communicating his Revelation, just as in every intelligent being the most immediate consequences of its affirmations are logically present.
The most considered classes of these connected truths are those of theological conclusions (v.), dogmatic facts (v.), canonization (v.), and ecclesiastical legislation. The connection of canonization with Revelation appears from the fact that it is nothing other than the concrete application of two articles of faith, that on the cult of the saints (v.) and that on the communion of saints (v.), besides the fact that it concerns Christian religious practice itself, since the canonized person is also proposed as a model of perfect virtue. For legislation, the link is revealed in its dependence on revealed moral principles, which are here interpreted and applied for the whole Church. A particular case is constituted by the solemn approval of religious Orders, such in the strict sense. By it the Church declares that a manner of life is a safe way to Christian perfection. Infallibility, however, does not involve a judgment of greater or lesser prudence in the promulgation of universal ecclesiastical laws.
The principle of infallibility concerning the secondary object has in its favor the unanimous consent of Catholic theology; indeed, its certainty would, according to some theologians, animated by the breadth of Christ's promises, rise to the degree of divine faith (indications of the ecclesiastical magisterium on the matter in Denz-U, 1698, 1722, 1817, 2005). The assent owed by the faithful to definitions concerning connected truths is generally called assent of ecclesiastical faith. But a strong theological current, whose major representatives are Schiflini, Gardell, Tuyerra, Marlin-Sola, Beraza, Stolz, would wish to abolish, along with the distinction between the primary and secondary object of infallibility, ecclesiastical faith itself, and to establish a single object, revealed doctrine, however revealed, to be held, after the Church's definition, as of divine-Catholic faith.