Infallibility I & II.

CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION -- Is the ban on ordaining women infallible as Rome said in October? Our response was framed in an editorial (December 1, 1995). Below we have asked several eminent theologians to discuss diverse aspects of the question. In our February 9 issue an essay by Richard R. Gaillardetz will look at the responsibilities of pastoral ministers in presenting the teachings of the church in-controverted matters.

On the eve of the Second Vatican Council, the distinguished American church historian John Tracy Ellis remarked: "It is doubtful that any event in the history of the modem church ever gave rise to a greater flow of misinformation than the [First] Vatican Council." Vatican I (1869-70), when remembered at all, is often summarily characterized as the council that proclaimed that "the pope is infallible."

This commonplace characterization, however, is a prime example of the misinformation that has plagued Vatican I from its own, day to the present. In treating the teaching office of the pope, Vatican I did not claim that "the pope is infallible," but stated that, under certain specified conditions, the pope can exercise "that infallibility which the Divine Redeemer willed to bestow on his church." In other words, "infallibility" is not a personal attribute of the pope, but a charism divinely given to the church--a charism which the pope may utilize only on behalf of the church in deciding major questions of faith or morals.

To some, such a distinction may seem theological hairsplitting; however, there are important consequences: if one says that "the pope is infallible," it suggests that his every pronouncement is unchangeable; in contrast, stating that "the pope can exercise infallibility in specific circumstances" implies that some, but certainly not all, papal decisions come within the scope of infallibility.

But what is the "scope" of infallibility? In attempting to answer this question, a careful examination of the text of Pastor aeternus--the document which presented the council's teaching on the "infallible magisterium of the Roman pontiff"--shows that Vatican I did not give a definition of what infallibility is, but rather described how infallability can be exercised; namely, when the pope "speaks ex cathedra, as pastor and teacher of all Christians." In other words, if the pope is to exercise infallibility, he must do so in a formal way with the evident intention of binding all Christians.

But what kind of church teaching can come under infallibility? Pastor aeternus specified: "doctrine concerning faith or morals that must be held by the universal church." This answer implicitly distinguished "doctrine that must be held" (doctrina tenenda) from "doctrine that must be believed" (doctrina credenda). The Latin periphrastic is important, insofar as Vatican I did not restrict the exercise of infallibility to matters of faith (credenda), but allowed the possibility that infallibility might extend to "doctrine that must be held" (tenenda), even though that teaching is not, strictly speaking, a matter of divine revelation.

This distinction between credenda and tenenda caused considerable discussion, not only during but also after Vatican I. On the one hand, for example, were people like Henry Edward Manning, the archbishop of Westminster, one of the foremost advocates of infallibility at the council, who considered practically every papal decision as potentially coming under the scope of infallibility. On the other hand were people like John Henry Newman who advocated a "principle of minimizing" that included very few papal declarations within the scope of infallibility. Although their views on infallibility were quite different, both Mannin and Newman were subsequently named cardinals.

Such diversity in interpreting the scope of infallibility continued for decades. For example, some theologians tried to read infallibility back into history and considered papal pronouncements, such as the Syllabus of Errors (1864) and the condemnation of Luther (1520), as exercises of infallibility. Other theologians, however, pointed out that Pastor aeternus did not make any retroactive judgments; thus, any attribution of infallibility to previous papal decisions is inevitably a matter of interpretation. One case, however, where theologians of varying views found common ground was in recognizing the proclamation of the Immaculate Conception in 1854 as an exercise of infallibility by the pope in consultation with the bishops of the world.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a few theologians argued that various papal decisions, such as the condemnation of modernism by Pius X in 1907, were tantamount to an exercise of infallibility; however, such attempts to extend the scope of infallibility beyond matters of revelation received comparatively little support among theologians. Between the First and Second Vatican Councils, the single universally recognized papal exercise of infallibility was another Marian dogma--the Assumption--proclaimed by Pius XII in 1950.

Vatican II (1962-65) revisited the topic of infallibility in Lumen gentium (25) which acknowledged that the college of bishops could exercise infallibility under certain conditions: "Although individual bishops do not enjoy the prerogative of infallibility, nevertheless, when the bishops, although dispersed throughout the world, but preserving the bond of communion among themselves and with Peter's successor, authoritatively teach a matter of faith and morals and so are in agreement about a doctrine that must be held definitively, they infallibly proclaim the doctrine of Christ."

In this statement, Vatican II, like Vatican I earlier, spoke of the scope of infallibility as "doctrine that must be held" (tenenda); however, a statement in the very next paragraph of Lumen gentium described infallibility as co-extensive with the "deposit of divine revelation, which must be religiously guarded and faithfully expounded." In effect, this description seemed to restrict the scope of infallibility to doctrine which must be believed (credenda). Such an interpretation seemed to be corroborated by the council's further statement that "when either the Roman pontiff, or the body of bishops with him, define a teaching, they make this pronouncement in accord with revelation itself."

In retrospect, it may seem surprising that "collegiality" rather than infallibility was a bone of contention at Vatican II. However, given the conciliar teaching on collegiality, the exercise of infallibility by the college of bishops can be considered a logical extension of the teaching of Vatican I: if the pope on specific occasions can exercise infallibility, then the college of bishops in communion with the pope can under specific conditions also exercise infallibility.

A highly publicized challenge to infallibility came on the centennial of Vatican I with the publication of Hans Kung's Infallible? An Inquiry (Doubleday, 1971). Reacting to what he considered the slow pace of postconciliar renewal in general, and to Humanae vitae in particular, Kung cited a litany of papal errors that purportedly demonstrated that "infallible statements" are impossible.

Although Kung's challenge to infallibility created considerable theological debate, it was flawed on a number of counts. First, Kung's list of "papal errors" consisted of tenenda--matters which various popes had indeed taught, but as teachings to be obeyed or held, not necessarily as matters to be believed; most theologians readily granted that such tenenda were teachings which, however important at the time they were issued, still were decisions that could be changed.

What Kung had, in effect, attacked was the exaggerated interpretations of people like Manning and W. G. Ward, who reportedly would have liked an "infallible papal pronouncement" for breakfast every morning along with his tea and the Times. In contrast, minimalist interpretations--inherited from people like Newman--that restricted the scope of infallibility to credenda were basically untouched by Kung's "inquiry." Nonetheless, the "infallibility debate" of the 1970s did indicate an anomaly about credenda and tenenda: where the former is limited to doctrines that must be believed because they are taught by the church to be matters of divine revelation, tenenda is a broad category, extending from doctrines closely "related to faith" through such matters as canonizations which at least from a ceremonial standpoint are among the most solemn of papal proclamations--to decisions dealing with such matters as liturgical practice and the approbation of religious communities.

Theologians have generally insisted that tenenda, particularly those concerned with ecclesiastical discipline, are not, strictly speaking, matters of faith. Nonetheless, tenenda have an important role in the liturgical and communal life of the church, insofar as they provide directives for worship and action.

Theologians have also generally acknowledged that some tenenda are so closely related to the deposit of faith that there may come a time when what were once regarded as tenenda may be judged to be matters of credenda. For example, before 1950, the doctrine of the Assumption was often considered as tenenda; in effect, the definition of 1950 proclaimed it to be credenda.

More recently, in 1989, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith began requiring a new "Profession of Faith and Oath of Fidelity" of those called to exercise an office in the name of the church. The first part of the "Profession of Faith" consisted of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed; the second part enumerated three "types of truth": (1) credenda--"everything contained in the written or traditioned word of God and proposed by the church as divinely revealed, either in solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal magisterium"; (2) "everything definitively proposed [by the church] concerning faith or morals"; (3) "everything which either the Roman pontiff or the college of bishops teach when they exercise their authoritative magisterium, even if they intend to proclaim this teaching in a non-definitive way."

In other words, the expanded "Profession of Faith" distinguished two categories of tenenda: (1) matters which are definitively proposed and (2) matters which are authoritatively proposed, albeit in a nondefinitive way. While theologians generally acknowledge that some tenenda are more important than others, in 1990, a committee of the Catholic Theological Society of America pointed out that the application of the profession's distinction seems "indeterminate or ambiguous."

However, this first category of tenenda is evident in the affirmative reply of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on October 28,1995, to the question: "Should the doctrine, definitively proposed as tenenda in the apostolic letter, Ordinatio sacerdotalis, that the church has no ability to confer priestly ordination on women, be understood as related to the deposit of faith?" The response then went on to assert that this teaching requires "definitive assent" as a doctrine proposed infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium."

The congregation's response effectively initiates a new chapter in the history of infallibility. On the one hand, theologians favoring a "principle of minimizing" will have difficulty generalizing about what apparently is a unique instance of infallibility being officially extended to tenenda. Simultaneously, theologians who maintain that tenenda come within the scope of infallibility will have difficulty in drawing the line between the two new categories of tenenda. However, as this brief history of infallibility during the past century-and-a-quarter shows, such interpretive variance is hardly new.

Regardless of the directions theological discussion about the scope of infallibility may take in the future, it is important to bear in mind the essential issue: infallibility is a charism divinely given to the church to preserve and proclaim God's revelation.

John T. Ford, C.S.C., professor of theology at the School of Religious Studies, The Catholic University of America, contributed the article on "Infallibility" to The New Dictionary of Theology (Michael Glazier, 1987).