CHAPTER II.[ToC]
THE POPE'S GREAT PREROGATIVE.
The clear and certain recognition of a great truth is seldom the work of a day. We often possess it in a confused and hidden way, before we can detect, to a nicety, its exact nature and limitations. It takes time to declare itself with precision, and, like a plant in its rudimentary stages, it may sometimes be mistaken for what it is not—though, once it has reached maturity, we can mistake it no longer. As Cardinal Newman observes: "An idea grows in the mind by remaining there; it becomes familiar and distinct, and is viewed in its relations; it leads to other aspects, and these again to others.... Such intellectual processes as are carried on silently and spontaneously in the mind of a party or school, of necessity come to light at a later date, and are recognised, and their issues are scientifically arranged." Consequently, though dogma is unchangeable as truth is unchangeable, this immutability does not exclude progress. In the Church, such progress is nothing else than the development of the principles laid down in the beginning by Jesus Christ Himself. Thus—to take a simple illustration—in three different councils, the Church has declared and proposed three different articles of Faith, viz., that in Jesus Christ there are (1) two natures, (2) two wills, and (3) one only Person. These may seem to some, who cannot look beneath the surface, to be three entirely new doctrines; to be, in fact, "additions to the creed". In sober truth, they are but expansions of the original doctrine which, in its primitive and revealed form, has been known and taught at all times, that is to say, the doctrine that Christ is, at once, true God and true Man. That one statement really contains the other three; the other three merely give us a fuller and a completer grasp of the original one, but tell us nothing absolutely new.
In a similar manner, and by a similar process, we arrive at a clearer and more explicit knowledge of other important truths, which were not at first universally recognised as being contained in the original deposit. The dogma of Papal infallibility is an instance in point. For though no Catholic ever doubted the genuine infallibility of the Church, yet in the early centuries, there existed some difference of opinion, as to where precisely the infallible authority resided. Most Catholics, even then, believed it to be a gift conferred by Christ upon Peter himself [who alone is the rock], and upon each Pope who succeeded him in his office, personally and individually, but some were of opinion that, not the Pope by himself, but only "the Pope-in-Council," that is to say, the Pope supported by a majority of Bishops, was to be considered infallible. So that, while all admitted the Pope with a majority of the Bishops, taken together, to be divinely safeguarded from teaching error, yet the prevailing and dominant opinion, from the very first, went much further, and ascribed this protection to the Sovereign Pontiff likewise when acting alone and unsupported. This is so well known, that even the late Mr. Gladstone, speaking as an outside observer, and as a mere student of history, positively brings it as a charge against the Catholic Church that "the Popes, for well-nigh a thousand years, have kept up, with comparatively little intermission, their claim to dogmatic infallibility" (Vat. p. 28). Still, the point remained unsettled by any dogmatic definition, so that, as late as in 1793, Archbishop Troy of Dublin did but express the true Catholic view of his own day when he wrote: "Many Catholics contend that the Pope, when teaching the Universal Church, as their supreme visible head and pastor, as successor to St. Peter, and heir to the promises of special assistance made to him by Jesus Christ, is infallible; and that his decrees and decisions in that capacity are to be respected as rules of faith, when they are dogmatical, or confined to doctrinal points of faith and morals. Others," the Archbishop goes on to explain, "deny this, and require the expressed or tacit acquiescence of the Church assembled or dispersed, to stamp infallibility on his dogmatic decrees." Then he concludes:—"Until the Church shall decide upon this question of the Schools, either opinion may be adopted by individual Catholics, without any breach of Catholic communion or peace."
This was how the question stood until 1870. But it stands in that position no longer; for the Church has now spoken—Roma locuta est, causa finita. Hence, no Catholic can now deny or call into question the great prerogative of the Vicar of Christ, without suffering shipwreck of the faith. At the Vatican Council, Pope Pius IX. and the Archbishops and Bishops of the entire Catholic world were gathered together in Rome, and after earnest prayer and prolonged discussion, they declared that the prerogative of infallibility, which is the very source of Catholic unity, and the very secret of Catholic strength, resides in the individual Pope who happens, at the time, to occupy the Papal chair, and that when he speaks ex cathedrâ, his definitions are infallibly true, and consonant with Catholic revelation, even before they have been accepted by the hierarchy throughout the world. But here it must be borne in mind that the Pope speaks ex cathedrâ, that is to say, infallibly, only when he speaks:—
1. As the Universal Teacher.
2. In the name and with the authority of the Apostles.
3. On a point of Faith or Morals.
4. With the purpose of binding every member of the Church to accept and believe his decision.
Thus it is clearly seen that from the year 1870 the dogma of Papal, in contra-distinction to ecclesiastical infallibility, has been defined and raised to an article of faith, the denial of which is heresy.
The doctrine is at once new and yet not new. It is new in the sense that up to the time of the Vatican Council it had never been actually drawn out of the premises that contained it, and set forth before the faithful in a formal definition. On the other hand, it is not new, but as old as Christianity, in the sense that it was always contained implicitly in the deposit of faith. Any body of truth that is living grows, and unfolds and becomes more clearly understood and more thoroughly grasped, as time wears on. The entire books of Euclid are after all but the outcome of a few axioms and accepted definitions. These axioms help us to build up certain propositions. And one proposition, when established, leads to another, till at last we seem to have unearthed statements entirely new and original. Yet, they are certainly not really new, for had they not been all along contained implicitly in the few initial facts, it is quite clear they could never have been evolved from them. Nemo dat, quod non habet.
Hence Papal Infallibility is not so much a new truth, or an "addition to the Faith," as some heretics would foolishly try to persuade us, as a clearer expression and a more exact and detailed presentation of what was taught from the beginning.