Infallibility

A reader writes:

How do you differentiate infallible declarations of a Pope from a fallible opinon? Is there a specific formula or phrase used? Also, are the decisions of councils considered infallible? (for example the Council of Trent) Thanks for all the information.

No prob!

While theoretically a pope or a council can engage the Church’s infallibility by using any form of words that adequately communicates the pope or council’s intent to make an infallible definition, in practice there have developed certain standard forms of expression that are understood to communicate this intent.

In the case of a pope, the standard form of expression uses the verb "define," as in "I declare and define that X."

In the case of a council, the standard form involves the word "anathema," which (contrary to a popular impression to the contrary) does not mean the automatic damnation of someone. (Instead it refers to an exclusion from communion with the Church; SEE HERE). The typical formula was "If anyone says X, let him be anathma."

Formulas of the latter nature, of course, have to be on a matter of faith or morals and not simply on disciplinary or similar matters.

Attention also has to be given as to whether these terms had come to signal the engagement of the Church’s infallibility in a particular age (there may be early examples in which the language is used before its intent to trigger infallibility had become fixed).

And in all cases the matter that is defined must be understood in its historical context (i.e., we have to read the language they use in the context of the time and not as if it had been uttered in earlier or later ages) and the matter being defined must be given a strict construction, in keeping with canon law’s provision that:

Can. 749 ยง3. No doctrine is understood as defined infallibly
unless this is manifestly evident.

This means that only the claim being specifically made is defined, not similar or related claims.

It also means that in cases of doubt, a matter is assumed not to be defined.

From the foregoing, it can be seen that the Church has a preference for not defining things and only engaging its infallibility when there is a pressing need (for the most part).

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

14 thoughts on “Infallibility”

  1. Was the declaration on the ordination of women, Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), an infallible document.
    I understand from this document that the Church has no power to confer oridination on women, but I am intrigued:
    Was Pope John Paul The Great speaking infallibly in this document?

  2. I’ve always been curious why the two Marian dogmas were promulgated as they were. What was the ‘pressing need’ that caused the Pope(s) to engage infallibility in those instances?

  3. Was Pope John Paul The Great speaking infallibly in this document?
    The doctrine contained in OS is infallible, but OS is not infallible in and of itself. It was not an exercise of the extraordinary Magisterium. So wrote then-Cardinal Ratzinger.

  4. I’m confused about the status of the teaching that the Church cannot ordinate women. The language in OS does not follow the canons WRT the wording of infallible statements, yet the statement from the CDF, penned by then Cardinal Ratzinger, did. Then again, only the pope can make infallible statements…
    What to make of all this?
    God bless.

  6. Augustine: “I’m confused about the status of the teaching that the Church cannot ordinate women. “
    The Church teaches no such thing. She may ordinate women if she deems it necessary and proper.
    She may not ORDAIN women, however.

  8. Because there was nothing in Vatican II declared infallible, it could for example, one day be abbrogated in its entirety, by a Pontiff.
    Vatican I could never be abbrogatd or made null and void, since it is infallibly.

  9. It seems to me that the titling of certain documents (ie, Lumen Gentium and Dei Verbum) as “Dogmatic Constitutions”, indicating that these are Concillar teachings on dogma, plus that they are written “for everlasting memory”, which would seem to denote that they are changing things which will always be so, would indicate an intent on the part of the Council Fathers to hand down an infallible teaching, at least in those documents.
    That being said, and considering that the concept of ‘sensus fidelium’ was articulated in chapter 12 of the aforementioned Lumen Gentium, that it should in fact be considered infallible.

  11. “What was the ‘pressing need’ that caused the Pope to engage infallibility…”
    My favorite example of the need to declare something infallible was in 1870 when the Italian siege guns liberating Rome from centuries of misrule by the Pope persuaded the Pope to call a council and declare himself infallible.

  13. Ops, I forgot to put my name on the penultimate note. Also, I beg to differ, I am not anti-Catholic, but like many good Catholics I will not ignore history.

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