§ 34. Papal Infallibility Explained, and Tested by Tradition and Scripture.

§ 34. Papal Infallibility Explained, and Tested by Tradition and Scripture.

Literature.

I. For Infallibility.

The older defenders of Infallibility are chiefly Bellarmin, Ballerini, Litta, Alphons de Liguori (whom the Pope raised to the dignity of a doctor ecclesiæ, March 11, 1872), Card. Orsi, Perrone, and Joseph Count du Maistre (Sardinian statesman, d. at Turin Feb. 26, 1821, author of Du Pape, 1819; new edition, Paris, 1843, with the Homeric motto: eis koiranos esto.

During and after the Vatican Council: the works of Archbishops Manning and Dechamps, already quoted, pp. 134, 135.

Jos. Cardoni (Archbishop of Edessa, in partibus): Elucubratio de dogmatica Romani Pontificis Infallibilitate ejusque Definibilitate, Romæ (typis Civilitatis Cattolicæ), 1870 (May, 174 pp.). The chief work on the Papal side, clothed with a semi-official character.

Hermann Rump: Die Unfehlbarkeit den Papstes und die Stellung der in Deutschland verbreiteten theologischen Lehrbücher zu dieser Lehre, Münster, 1870 (173 pp.).

Franz Friedhoff (Prof. at Münster): Gegen-Erwägungen über die päpstliche Unfehlbarkeit, Münster, 1869 (21 pp.). Superficial.

Flor. Riess and Karl von Weber (Jesuits): Das Oekum. Concil. Stimmen aus Maria-Laach, Neue Folge, No. X. Die päpstliche Unfehlbarkeit und der alte Glaube der Kirche, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1870 (110pp.).

G. Bickel: Gründe fur die Unfehlbarkeit des Kirchenoberhauptes nebst Widerlegung der Einwürfe, Münster, 1870.

Rev. P. Weninger (Jesuit): L'infaillibilité du Pape devant la raison et l'écriture, les papes et les conciles, les pères et les théologiens, les rois et les empereurs. Translated from the German into French by P. Bélét. (Highly spoken of by Pius IX. in a brief to Abbé Bélét, Nov. 17, 1869; see Friedberg, l.c. p. 487. Weninger wrote besides several pamphlets on Infallibility in German, Innsbruck, 1841; Graz, 1853; in English, New York and Cincinnati, 1868. Archbishop Kenrick, in his Concio; speaks of him as 'a pious and extremely zealous but ignorant man,' whom he honored with 'the charity of silence' when requested to recommend one of his books.)

Widerlegung der vier unter die Väter des Concils vertheilten Brochüren gegen die Unfehlbarkeit (transl. of Animadversiones in quatuor contra Romani Pontificis infallibilitatem editos libellos), Münster, 1870.

Bishop Jos. Fessler: Die wahre und die falsche Unfehlbarkeit der Päpste (against Prof. von Schulte), Wien,1871.

Bishop Ketteler: Das unfehlbare Lehramt des Papstes, nach der Entscheidung des Vaticanischen Concils, Mainz, 1871, 3te Aufl.

M. J. Scheeben: Schulte und Döllinger, gegen das Concil. Kritische Beleuchtung, etc., Regensburg, 1871.

Amédée de Margerie: Lettre au R. P. Gratry sur le Pape Honorius et le Bréviaire Romain, Nancy, 1870

Paul Bottala (S.J.): Pope Honorius before the Tribunal of Reason and History, London, 1868.

II. Against Infallibility.

(a) By Members of the Council.

Mgr. H. L. C. Maret (Bishop of Sura, in part., Canon of St. Denis and Dean of the Theological Faculty in Paris): Du Concile général et de la paix religieuse, Paris, 1869, 2 Tom. (pp. 554 and 555). An elaborate defense of Gallicanism; since revoked by the author, and withdrawn from sale.

Peter Richard Kenrick (Archbishop of St. Louis): Concio in Concilio Vaticano habenda at non habita, Neapoli (typis fratrum de Angelis in via Pellegrini 4), 1870. Reprinted in Friedrich, Documenta, I. pp. 187-226. An English translation in L. W. Bacon's An Inside View of the Vatican Council, New York, pp. 90-166.

Quæstio (no place or date of publication). A very able Latin dissertation occasioned and distributed (perhaps partly prepared) by Bishop Ketteler, of Mayence, during the Council. It was printed but not published in Switzerland, in 1870, and reprinted in Friedrich, Documenta, I. pp. 1-128.

La liberté du Concile et l'infaillibilité. Written or inspired by Darboy, Archbishop of Paris. Only flfty copies were printed, for distribution among the Cardinals. Reprinted in Friedrich, Documenta, I. pp. 129-186.

Card. Rauscher: Observationes quædam de infallibilitatis ecclesiæ subjecto, Neapoli and Vindobonæ, 1870 (83 pp.).

De Summi Pontificis infallibilitate personali, Neapoli, 1870 (32 pp.). Written by Prof. Salesius Mayer, and distributed in the Council by Cardinal Schwarzenberg.

Jos. de Hefele (Bishop of Rottenburg, formerly Prof. at Tübingen): Causa Honorii Papæ, Neap. 1870 (pp. 28). The same: Honorius und das sechste allgemeine Concil (with an appendix against Pennachi, 43 pp.), Tübingen, 1870. English translation, with introduction, by Dr. Henry B. Smith, in the Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review, New York, for April, 1872, pp. 273 sqq. Against Hefele comp. Jos. Pennachi (Prof. of Church History in Rome): De Honorii I. Pontificis Romani causa in Concilio VI.

(b) By Catholics, not Members of the Council.

Janus: The Pope and the Council, 1869. See above, p. 134.

Erwägungen für die Bischöfe del Conciliums über die Frage der päpstlichen Unfehlbarkeit, Oct. 1869. Dritte Aufl. München. [By J. von Döllinger.]

J. von Döllinger: Einige Worte über die Unfehlbarkeitsadresse, etc., München, 1870.

Jos. H. Reinkens (Prof. of Church History in Breslau): Ueber päpstliche Unfehlbarkeit, München, 1870.

Clemens Schmitz (Cath. Priest): Ist der Papst unfehlbart? Aus Deutschlands und des P. Deharbe Catechismen beantwortet, München, 1870.

J. Fr. Ritter von Schulte (Prof. in Prague, now in Bonn): Das Unfehlbarkeits-Decret vom 18 Juli 1870 auf seine Verbindlichkeit geprüft, Prague, 1870. Die Macht der röm. Päpste über Fürsten, Länder, Vöker, etc. seit Gregor VII. zur Würdigung ihrer Unfehlbarkeit beleuchtet, etc., 2d edition, Prague. The same, translated into English (The Power of the Roman Popes over Princes, etc.), by Alfred Somers [a brother of Schulte], Adelaide, 1871.

A. Gratry (Priest of the Oratoire and Member of the French Academy): Four Letters to the Bishop of Orleans (Dupanloup) and the Archbishop of Malines (Dechamps), in French, Paris, 1870; several editions, also translated into German, English, etc. These learned and eloquent letters gave rise to violent controversies. They were denounced by several Bishops, and prohibited in their dioceses; approved by others, and by Montalembert. The Pope praised the opponents. Against him wrote Dechamps (Three letters to Gratry, in French; German translation, Mayence, 1870) and A. de Margerie. Gratry recanted on his death-bed.

P. Le Page Renouf: The Condemnation of Pope Honorius, London, 1868.

Antonio Magrassi: Lo Schema sull' infallibilità personale del Romano Pontefice, Alessandria, 1870.

Della pretesa infallibilità personale del Romano Pontefice, 2d ed. Firenze, 1870 (anonymous, 80 pp.).

J. A. B. Lutterbeck: Die Clementinen und ihr Verhältniss zum Unfehlbarkeitsdogma, Giessen, 1872 (pp. 85).

Joseph Langen (Old Catholic Prof. in Bonn): Das Vaticanische Dogma von dem Universal-Episcopat und der Unfehlbarkeit des Papstes in s. Verh. zur exeg. Ueberlieferung vom 7 bis zum 13ten Jahrh. 3 Parts. Bonn, 1871-73.

The sinlessness of the Virgin Mary and the personal infallibility of the Pope are the characteristic dogmas of modern Romanism, the two test dogmas which must decide the ultimate fate of this system. Both were enacted under the same Pope, and both faithfully reflect his character. Both have the advantage of logical consistency from certain premises, and seem to be the very perfection of the Romish form of piety and the Romish principle of authority. Both rest on pious fiction and fraud; both present a refined idolatry by clothing a pure humble woman and a mortal sinful man with divine attributes. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which exempts the Virgin Mary from sin and guilt, perverts Christianism into Marianism; the dogma of Infallibility, which exempts the Bishop of Rome from error, resolves Catholicism into Papalism, or the Church into the Pope. The worship of a woman is virtually substituted for the worship of Christ, and a man-god in Rome for the God-Man in heaven. This is a severe judgment, but a closer examination will sustain it.

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception, being confined to the sphere of devotion, passed into the modern Roman creed without serious difficulty; but the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which involves a question of absolute power, forms an epoch in the history of Romanism, and created the greatest commotion and a new secession. It is in its very nature the most fundamental and most comprehensive of of all dogmas. It contains the whole system in a nutshell. It constitutes a new rule of faith. It is the article of the standing or falling Church. It is the direct antipode of the Protestant principle of the absolute supremacy and infallibility of the Holy Scriptures. It establishes a perpetual divine oracle in the Vatican. Every Catholic may hereafter say, I believe--not because Christ, or the Bible, or the Church, but--because the infallible Pope has so declared and commanded. Admitting this dogma, we admit not only the whole body of doctrines contained in the Tridentine standards, but all the official Papal bulls, including the mediæval monstrosities of the Syllabus (1864), the condemnation of Jansenism, the bull 'Unam Sanctam' of Boniface VIII. (1302), which, under pain of damnation, claims for the Pope the double sword, the secular as well as the spiritual, over the whole Christian world, and the power to depose princes and to absolve subjects from their oath of allegiance. [322] The past is irreversibly settled, and in all future controversies on faith and morals we must look to the same unerring tribunal in the Vatican. Even oecumenical Councils are superseded hereafter, and would be a mere waste of time and strength.

On the other hand, if the dogma is false, it involves a blasphemous assumption, and makes the nearest approach to the fulfillment of St. Paul's prophecy of the man of sin, who 'as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself off that he is God' (2 Thess. ii. 4).

Let us first see what the dogma does not mean, and what it does mean.

It does not mean that the Pope is infallible in his private opinions' on theology and religion. As a man, he may be a heretic (as Liberius, Honorius, and John XXII.), or even an unbeliever (as John XXIII., and, perhaps, Leo X.), and yet, at the same time, infallible as Pope, after the fashion of Balaam and Kaiphas.

Nor does it mean that infallibility extends beyond the proper sphere of religion and the Church. The Pope may be ignorant of science and literature, and make grave mistakes in his political administration, or be misinformed on matters of fact (unless necessarily involved in doctrinal decisions), and yet be infallible in defining articles of faith. [323]

Infallibility does not imply impeccability. And yet freedom from error and freedom from sin are so nearly connected in men's minds that it seems utterly impossible that such moral monsters as Alexander VI. and those infamous Popes who disgraced humanity during the Roman pornocracy in the tenth and eleventh centuries, should have been vicars of Jesus Christ and infallible organs of the Holy Ghost. If the inherent infallibility of the visible Church logically necessitates the infallibility of the visible head, it is difficult to see why the same logic should not with equal conclusiveness derive the personal holiness of the head from the holiness of the body.

On the other hand, the dogma does mean that all official utterances of the Roman Pontiff addressed to the Catholic Church on matters of Christian faith and duty are infallibly true, and must be accepted with the same faith as the word of the living God. They are not simply final in the sense in which all decisions of an absolute government or a supreme court of justice are final until abolished or superseded by other decisions, [324] but they are irreformable, and can never be revoked. This infallibility extends over eighteen centuries, and is a special privilege conferred by Christ upon Peter, and through him upon all his legitimate successors. It belongs to every Pope from Clement to Pius IX., and to every Papal bull addressed to the Catholic world. It is personal, i.e., inherent in Peter and the Popes; it is independent, and needs no confirmation from the Church or an oecumenical Council, either preceding or succeeding; its decrees are binding, and can not be rejected without running the risk of eternal damnation. [325]

Even within the narrow limits of the Vatican decision there is room for controversy on the precise meaning of the figurative term ex cathedra loqui, and the extent of faith and morals, viz., whether Infallibility includes only the supernatural order of revealed truth and duty, or also natural and political duties, and questions of mere history, such as Peter's residence in Koine, the number of oecumenical Councils, the teaching of Jansen and Quesnel, and other disputed facts closely connected with dogmas. But the main point is clear enough. The Ultramontane theory is established, Gallicanism is dead and buried.