Now the Catholic Church is a complete and independent organization, as complete in its spiritual sphere as the United States Government is in the temporal order. The Church has its own laws, its own autonomy and government.
The Church, therefore, like civil powers, must have a permanent and stationary supreme tribunal to interpret its laws and to determine cases of religious controversy.
What constitutes this permanent supreme court of the Church? Does it consist of the Bishops assembled in General Council? No; because this is not an ordinary but an extraordinary tribunal which meets, on an average, only once in a hundred years.
Is it composed of the Bishops scattered throughout the world? By no means, because it would be impracticable to consult all the Bishops of Christendom upon every issue that might arise in the Church. The poison of error would easily spread through the body of the Church before a decision [pg 133] could be rendered by the Prelates dispersed throughout the globe. The Pope, then, as Head of the Catholic Church, constitutes, with just reason, this supreme tribunal.
And as the office of the Church is to guide men into all truth, and to preserve them from all error, it follows that he who is appointed to watch over the constitution of the Church must be infallible, or exempt from error in his official capacity as judge of faith and morals. The prerogatives of the Pope must be commensurate with the nature of the constitution which he has to uphold. The constitution is Divine and must have a Divinely protected interpreter.
But you will tell me that infallibility is too great a prerogative to be conferred on man. I answer: Has not God, in former times, clothed His Apostles with powers far more exalted? They were endowed with the gifts of working miracles, of prophecy and inspiration; they were the mouth-piece communicating God's revelation, of which the Popes are merely the custodians. If God could make man the organ of His revealed Word, is it impossible for Him to make man its infallible guardian and interpreter? For, surely, greater is the Apostle who gives us the inspired Word than the Pope who preserves it from error.
If, indeed, our Saviour had visibly remained among us, no interpreter would be needed, since He would explain His Gospel to us; but as He withdrew His visible presence from us, it was eminently reasonable that He should designate someone to expound for us the meaning of His Word.
A Protestant Bishop, in the course of a sermon against Papal Infallibility, recently used the following language: “For my part, I have an infallible [pg 134] Bible, and this is the only infallibility that I require.” This assertion, though plausible at first sight, cannot for a moment stand the test of sound criticism.
Let us see, sir, whether an infallible Bible is sufficient for you. Either you are infallibly certain that your interpretation of the Bible is correct or you are not.
If you are infallibly certain, then you assert for yourself, and of course for every reader of the Scripture, a personal infallibility which you deny to the Pope, and which we claim only for him. You make every man his own Pope.