Organization: City University of New York/ University Computer Center
Date: Thursday, 15 Oct 1992 02:54:37 EDT
From: Marty Helgesen <MNHCC@CUNYVM.BITNET>
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Subject: Infallibility

Recently, under the heading "Altar girls and millstones", I pointed
out that pastors who permit altar girls in their churches and parents
who permit their daughters to be altar girls are corrupting the
children by teaching them that they are free to defy any church rule
they dislike.

Edward Branley replied by citing an incident of what appears to be
grave moral failure on the part of a bishop and saying he had diffi-
culty accepting as infallible Church decisions in which a bishop like
that participated.  That is irrelevant because infallibility is not
involved in this situation.  In that posting and my followup postings
I have treated this entirely as a matter of obedience to Church
regulations, prescinding from any doctrinal questions.

A more general problem is that the objection seems to reflect a lack
of understanding of what infallibility means.   "Infallible" is a
technical term.  It does not mean perfect.  It does not mean impecca-
ble (sinless).  If refers to the teaching office of the Church.  A
while ago I wrote an essay on infallibility for the list Christia. I
am including it here, with some minor modifications.

There have been several mentions of infallibility recently, so I
think some general remarks might be useful.  I think Christians
generally agree that God is infallible.  God is the only being who is
infallible by His very nature.  However, many Christians describe the
Bible as infallible.  Different Christians have different ideas of
the nature and scope of this infallibility, but they agree that it is
in some sense infallible.  But how can a book written by fallible
human beings be infallible?  The answer is that God inspired the
human authors so that they wrote what He wanted written.  (There also
are disagreements about the nature and scope of inspiration.)  By
themselves the human authors of the books of the Bible were fallible,
but God intervened to make these specific writings infallible.

Many Christians say that the Church is infallible.  St. Paul said,
"the church of the living God (is) the pillar and ground of the
truth" (1 Tim. 3:15)  This brings up the question of what we mean by
"the Church" in this context.   Some say that the Church is the
fellowship of all believers, regardless of denominational affilia-
tion.  There is a sense in which this is true, but that cannot be the
sense intended here.  It is not clear what it would mean to say that
the fellowship of all believers is infallible, or how that infalli-
bility would be exercised.  From the earliest days of Christianity it
has been believed that the infallibility of the Church rests in the
bishops, who are the successors of the Apostles.  The common teaching
of the bishops is infallibly true.  If there is a dispute, and a
question of what the common teaching of the bishops is, then the
bishops can meet in an ecumenical council to discuss the question and
to decide what statements express their common faith on it.  When
they do so, they exercise the infallibility of the Church.  (An
ecumenical council is one with bishops from all over the world, as
distinct from a local or regional council.  It has nothing directly
to do with "ecumenism", the work for Christian unity.)  The Catholic
Church and the Eastern Orthodox Churches agree on this, but the
Eastern Orthodox believe that there were only seven ecumenical coun-
cils, and that the subsequent councils that the Catholic Church
recognizes as ecumenical were not truly ecumenical.

The question immediately arises, "How can bishops, who are fallible
men, be infallible?"  The answer is similar to the answer to the
question of how the Bible, written by fallible men, could be infalli-
ble:  God intervenes.  I said this answer is similar to, not the same
as the answer about the Bible because God inspired the human authors
of the Bible to write what He wanted written, but infallibility is
not inspiration.  Infallibility is purely a negative gift.  God will
not permit the bishops to define a false statement as true.

Frank Sheed, discussing this negative quality of infallibility, has
written of a priest who would ask the children in his parish school,
"Suppose the pope had the same infallibility in taking arithmetic
tests as he has in defining matters of faith and morals.  What is the
lowest possible mark he could get on an arithmetic test?"  Usually
someone who spoke without thinking would say "100", which is incor-
rect.  Eventually someone would come up with the correct answer,
which is "0".  If the pope handed in a blank test paper he would get
a mark of "0" but he would not have made any errors.  (God may choose
to enlighten the bishops in council or the  pope on a doctrine, and
certainly they pray for God's guidance, but that is not part of the
infallibility of the Church.)

This infallibility is strictly ex-officio. It applies to the bishops
ONLY in their formal definitions of doctrine.  It does not apply to
their individual opinions and decisions, and it does not mean they
cannot sin.  All bishops, including the bishop of Rome, are human
beings and commit sin.  They all must receive Christ's forgiveness of
their sins by confessing them to a priest and receiving absolution.

The infallibility of the pope is a special case of the infallibility
of the bishops.  The pope is the successor of St. Peter and the Vicar
of Christ. He is the visible head of the Church on Earth.  (I say
"the visible head" because Jesus Christ is the true head of the
Church.)  He can exercise the infallibility of the Church by himself,
without having to call the bishops to an ecumenical council.  The
doctrine of papal infallibility was formally defined by the First
Vatican Council in 1870.  Contrary to what some people seem to think,
the council did not make the pope infallible. God does that.  The
council just defined that He has chosen to do it.  Also, this was not
a new power or ability given to the pope. All popes from St. Peter on
have been infallible, although most popes have not had occasion to
exercise their infallibility.  In 1854 Pope Pius IX defined the
doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.  This was an infallible defi-
nition even though it was defined 16 years before the Council defined
the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Private opinions and administrative decisions are not infallible.
The definition of papal infallibility says that the pope must be
speaking "ex cathedra" ("from the chair") for a statement to be
infallible.  Some non-Catholics have seriously claimed that this
means the pope has to be sitting on a specific chair, a chair used by
St. Peter.  This is nonsense.  The "chair" or papal throne symbolizes
his office.  To say that the pope is speaking "ex cathedra" is only
to say that he is formally exercising the powers of his office.  In
the same way a meeting of an organization is conducted or "chaired"
by the "chairman" of the organization even though he may do it stand-
ing up.

Marty Helgesen