The definition of the Council of the Vatican, by virtue of the foregoing principles, furnishes every one of the faithful with an infallible motive for believing the infallibility of the Pope as a dogma of faith, and imposes the obligation of faith on his conscience. The teaching of the universal episcopate, in accordance with that definition, furnishes another equally infallible motive. And so does the universal belief of the faithful, who receive and submit to that infallible definition of the council. There is, moreover, such an abundance of proof from the Scripture, and the most conspicuous monuments of tradition, of the doctrine in question, that any person of ordinary education is capable of understanding enough of the evidence in the case to make a reasonable judgment, and might have done so, even before the case was decided. The fact that a small number of theologians held a different opinion was really of no weight at any time, considering the vastly preponderating weight of the judgment of all the saints, the great majority of theologians, and almost the entire body of the bishops. Whatever seeming probability the opinion of this small minority might have had in the minds of some having been totally destroyed by the judgment of the council, the reasons from Scripture and tradition gain now their full force and are seen in their true light. But the purpose we have had in view, and which we stated at the outset, is not the exhibition of these specific proofs, but the exposition of the relation of the new definition to the supremacy itself and the general doctrine of infallibility; as well as an answer to the question, how the infallibility of the Pope could have remained so long without an express definition.
In the first place, as to the supremacy. The Pope is, by divine right, supreme ruler, supreme teacher, and supreme judge over the universal church, and over all its priests and members, individually and collectively. As supreme ruler, he must be infallible; not indeed in all his particular acts, but in his principles and rules of government. Otherwise, he might subvert the constitution of the church, destroy morality, oppress and depose the orthodox prelates, promote heretics to the highest places, and do in the Catholic Church what the schismatical Eastern patriarchs have done, and what Cranmer did in England. By the very supposition, there would be no authority in the church to control him, and all the prelates and faithful would be bound to obey him. For, if there is any authority in the church superior to the Papal authority, the supremacy is in that authority, and not in the Pope. As supreme teacher, he can instruct all Christian bishops, as well as laity, in regard to the doctrine which they must believe, and bind their consciences to submit to his teaching. It follows from our entire foregoing argument that infallibility is necessary to the possession and exercise of such a power. As supreme judge in questions of faith and morals, his decision must be final and irreversible; for there is no judge above him except our Lord Jesus Christ himself. But the final judgments which the whole Catholic Church is bound to accept must be infallible. Sovereignty, or the possession of the plenitude of power, when it extends over the realm of mind and conscience, exacts infallibility. And this has been most lucidly and conclusively proved, during the recent controversies, by Archbishop Dechamps, Dom Guéranger, and various other able writers.
The infallibility of the Pope is implicitly contained in and logically concluded from the infallibility of the church in general, and of the teaching hierarchy in particular, in substantially the same way as it is in the supremacy. The church is essentially constituted by its fundamental principle, which is that of organic unity under one visible head, the successor of St. Peter. The vital force of this organic unity is faith, and, as the body is infallible in faith, and also governed by the head, the head must be infallible in a higher and more immediate sense; otherwise, the body of the church would be liable either to become corrupt in faith by remaining united to a corrupted head, or to cease to be a body by separating from its head. If we take the church as represented by another similitude, it is founded, as a building, on the Rock of Peter; that is, the Roman Church and the succession of Roman pontiffs. The foundation must be stable and immovable in faith, if the structure resting upon it has this immovable stability. So, also, the episcopal hierarchy, whether dispersed or congregated in a general council, must remain in communion of faith and doctrine with the Roman Church and Pontiff. The Pope must sanction their decrees, otherwise they are null and void. Those bishops who separate from the faith of the Roman Pontiff, no matter how numerous they may be, fall out of the communion of the church and forfeit their authority to teach. Evidently, therefore, if the teaching hierarchy is infallible, the rule and authority which directs and governs it must be infallible. If a pilot is placed on the flag-ship of a fleet which has to pass through a dangerous strait, and orders are given to every ship to follow in his wake, it is evident that the success of the passage depends on the unerring skill of the pilot. A fallible head to an infallible hierarchy, a fallible guide to an infallible church, a fallible supreme teacher, a fallible Vicar of Christ! What a contradiction in terms! Who can believe that our Lord Jesus Christ ever constituted his church upon such inconsistent principles? The supremacy of the Pope and the infallibility of the church plainly cannot coexist with each other in fact, or be united into a coherent whole in logic, without the infallibility of the Pope as the term of union. Yet these two doctrines have always been the constitutive principles of the Catholic Church.
It is, however, still requisite to answer the question, how any doctrine different from that defined by the Council of the Vatican could have existed and been tolerated so long among Catholics, and how the church could have postponed her definition to this late period. When we say it is requisite, we mean, merely, requisite in order to complete the explanation we promised to make. We have no right to ask reasons of the church, any more than of Almighty God, as a preliminary to our submission. We are to take with unquestioning docility whatever instruction the church gives us. Yet, we are permitted to make investigation of the truths of our religion, in order to understand them better, to confirm our belief, and to be ready to answer objections. Therefore, we reply to the question stated above, first, in general terms, that the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff has always been held, taught, and acted on by the supreme authority itself, and practically acknowledged by all good Catholics; and that its explicit definition was delayed until the necessity and expediency of such a definition was made clearly manifest, and the fitting occasion furnished by the providence of God.
The argument will be made more clear if we substitute the term irreformable in the place of infallible. All irreformable decrees are confessedly infallible, and the question of law and fact is therefore precisely this: whether the Roman Pontiffs have ever suffered their dogmatic decrees to be judicially revised by the bishops, or to remain suspended as to their complete obligatory force, until the express or tacit assent of the bishops had been manifested; and whether the church has ever recognized any such right in the bishops. So far as the Popes are concerned, it is enough to refer to the unquestionable fact that they have expressly prohibited appeals from the judgment of the Holy See to an œcumenical council, from the time of Celestine I. in the fifth century. Martin V. and Pius II. in the fifteenth century, Julius II. and Paul V. in the sixteenth century, renewed this prohibition. Clement XI., in the eighteenth century, condemned the Jansenists, who had appealed from the Bull Unigenitus to a general council, and pronounced sentence of excommunication upon all who promoted the appeal, unless they abandoned it and subscribed to the Unigenitus. This sentence was a general one, including all appeals from the Holy See to an œcumenical council. It was accepted by the whole church, a small party of Jansenists only remaining contumacious, and has been incorporated into the canon law. Moreover, the Holy See has always required the bishops to receive and promulgate without any judicial examination, and without delay, all its dogmatic judgments; and they have submitted to this demand obediently, even those who, like Bossuet, have held Gallican opinions. The most illustrious and irrefragable proof of the doctrine of the universal episcopate on this point which could be given, was really given at the Council of the Vatican. The monition at the end of the constitution on faith, which plainly declares the obligation of entire submission to the doctrinal decrees of the Holy See, was approved by the unanimous vote of all the fathers, including those belonging to what was called the minority. The Popes have always claimed and exercised the office of supreme judges in matters of faith, the episcopate and the whole church consenting and submitting, and all dissidents being compelled to keep silence or incur excommunication.
The definition of the Council of the Vatican has not, therefore, conferred any new rights on the Sovereign Pontiff or enlarged their exercise. It has only made an explicit statement that the rights always possessed and exercised by him are declared in the divine revelation to belong to him jure divino, with the guarantee of infallibility in their exercise, and proposed this statement to all the faithful with the obligation of receiving it as a part of the Catholic faith.
It is not very difficult to give satisfactory reasons why this was not done before. The church does not make definitions without a positive reason. Ordinarily, she waits until the truth is denied or disputed. Before the Council of Constance, or rather the period which immediately preceded that council, the plenary authority of the Pope had not been called in question except by open schismatics and heretics. We have the authority of Gerson, the principal author of Gallicanism, for the assertion that any one who had advanced his doctrine of the subjection of the Pope to the council before that time, would have been universally condemned as a heretic. The Council of Constance was a very irregular, abnormal, and imperfect council, until the election of Martin V. near its close. It was rather a congress or states-general of Christendom than a council. The residence of the popes at Avignon and the subsequent division of Catholic Christendom into three obediences, had put the pontifical authority in abeyance and diminished the moral force of the Holy See. The right and duty of putting an end to this state of things, and bringing the whole church under the jurisdiction of one certain and lawful head, had devolved by default upon the bishops, aided by the influence and authority of the princes, and the counsel of the principal theologians and priests of the time. Harrassed and distracted by the difficulties and dangers which beset the church, a number of leading men whose spirit and intention were good, and who were devoted to the preservation of Catholic unity, had fallen into the grievous mistake of seeking a remedy for existing and threatening disorders in a limitation of the sovereign authority of the Vicar of Christ. Martin V. obviously did the only thing prudent or even possible for the moment, in leaving the irregular and uncanonical decrees which they had passed to die of their own intrinsic weakness. His successor, Eugenius IV., had too many open and contumacious rebels and schismatics to deal with, to permit him to alienate those who had fallen into minor errors, unawares, by a formal condemnation. At the Council of Florence, the reconciliation of the Greeks and other Orientals to the Holy See was the object of paramount importance. At the Fifth Council of Lateran and at the Council of Trent, the fathers were absorbed by questions of far greater immediate necessity than that of Gallicanism. Yet the Council of Lateran came very near defining the Papal infallibility, and the result of the Council of Trent was to strengthen the pontifical authority immensely, as may be seen by reading the history of its final confirmation and promulgation, and examining the bull of confirmation itself, which effectually sweeps away every vestige of the irregular legislation of Constance. Between the Council of Trent and the Council of the Vatican, no other œcumenical council intervened. The Gallican controversy, as all know, chiefly raged during the reign of Louis XIV. The Pope refrained from any formal condemnation of the Gallican tenets, although urged even by that monarch himself to terminate the controversy by a final judgment; and, although these opinions were held and advocated by a certain number of Catholic prelates and theologians from that time until the Council of the Vatican, they were never branded by any note of censure by the Holy See. It may seem surprising that such a patient and cautious method of dealing with errors which have at length been condemned as heretical should have been pursued; but any one who knows the whole history of the matter must admire the supernatural wisdom of this course of conduct. One motive, doubtless, for it, was respect for Bossuet. But another and more powerful reason was that the Holy See desired to gain a victory by the means of discussion and argument, before reverting to the exercise of authority.
And again, it is obvious at first sight that a far greater moral weight has been given to the final definition, by the fact that the Sovereign Pontiffs have left the solemn and decisive deliberation and judgment of a matter which relates to their own highest and most sublime prerogative, to the bishops of the church assembled in a general council. It may appear strange to some that the church could tolerate an error even for a time. But there is a great difference between those errors which subvert the foundation and rule of faith, and those which only shake them a little. The errors of the Jansenists, Febronians, and other rebels against the authority of the Holy See, were of the first class, and were never tolerated. But the Gallicans of the school of Bossuet recognized and practised the duty of obedience to the Holy See. Their error lay rather in an illogical, indistinct, and imperfect conception of the supreme authority of the Roman Pontiff, than in a denial of any of its attributes. They admitted the right of the Pope to issue dogmatic judgments, and the obligation of bishops and the faithful to receive them with interior assent and obedience. They acknowledged that these judgments became judgments of the Catholic Church, and were made irreformable as soon as the assent of a majority of the bishops was even tacitly given. As this assent has always been given, not tacitly alone, but by the most formal and express adhesion, there has never been any practical divergence in doctrine between orthodox Gallicans and the more consistent Ultramontanes. St. Augustine himself had said that it is sometimes the wisest course to tolerate for a time the errors of those who hold the faith firmly, and err only by an imperfect knowledge and a confused conception of the truth. The church has not hesitated or faltered in regard to her own principles, or failed to act on them with full and distinct consciousness. But it is not always necessary for her to propose them fully and completely as articles of divine and Catholic faith to her children. It is for the church, guided, illuminated, governed, and assisted by the Holy Spirit, to judge of the time and manner in which she will unfold and display in all their brilliant majesty the treasures of her doctrine. She has waited until the nineteenth century to encircle the brow of the Queen of Heaven with the coronet of her definition of the Immaculate Conception, and to place in the tiara of the Vicar of Christ a new jewel by defining his infallibility. From both these splendid acts, in which her divine authority, her irresistible power, her infallible wisdom, and her miraculous unity are manifested with the most radiant lustre, incalculable blessings will flow in abundance upon her faithful children. Christ is honored in his Mother and in his Vicar. The serpent's head is crushed anew. Faith triumphs in her new conquests. The kingdom of God is strengthened and consolidated, and the kingdom of Satan is shaken to its foundations. Like the cathedral of Cologne, the superb edifice of theology approaches to its completion, the new marble rises side by side with that which is dimmed by the dust of ages, and new pinnacles are placed upon ancient foundations. This temple is one whose builder and maker is not man but God, whose designs are formed in eternity, but realized gradually and successively in time. From the foundation to the top-stone, the massive solidity, the symmetry and unity of plan, the harmony of proportions, the perfection of beauty, which become more clearly evident with every century, disclose the idea in the infinite mind of the Supreme Architect. The Catholic Church has been designed and constructed by the same being who designed and constructed the universe. As the solar system is unerring and unfailing in its movements, prescribed to it by the immutable law of its Creator, so is the church unerring and unfailing by the law of its divine Founder. And as the sun can never cease to be the unfailing source of light and heat, and the immovable centre of revolution, while the solar system endures, so the See of Peter must remain the centre and the source of truth, doctrine, law, unity, and perpetual movement to the Catholic Church, so long as time endures. It is this unerring stability of the Catholic Church in the law prescribed by its founder, Jesus Christ, which is properly termed infallibility; and, since this stability is communicated to all the distant and dependent churches under her obedience by the Roman Church, it is in the Roman Church that infallibility has its immovable seat and centre.
It is plain from the foregoing argument how false and flimsy is the pretence of Dr. Döllinger, M. Loyson, and the other rebels against the Council of the Vatican, that they have been excommunicated for adhering to the old Catholic faith which they have always held. All heretics have said the same thing, except those who have openly averred that they reject the authority of the Catholic Church. This is what the Arians said, and Arius knew how to play the injured, persecuted saint and prophet of God, even better than M. Loyson. The creed of Nice is a new creed, said the Arians and Semi-Arians. So said the rebels against the Councils of Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon. The little Jansenist sect in Holland calls itself the Old Catholic Church, and its members take the name of Old Catholics. The allegation is palpably and ridiculously false. The Gallican opinions were never a part of the Catholic doctrine. The highest claim that could ever be made for them by their advocates was, that they were probable opinions not condemned by the supreme authority. The best theologians have condemned them as erroneous and proximate to heresy. The Holy See has never shown them the slightest favor, but, on the contrary, has used all means, except that of express condemnation, to drive them out of seminaries, to destroy their credit, and to inculcate the true and sound doctrine. They were tolerated errors. While they were tolerated, it was possible for good Catholics, and even learned men, to hold them in good faith; since good and learned men, and even prelates, are fallible interpreters of both Scripture and tradition, and may err in reasoning and judgment. But their temporary toleration gave them no rights, not even those which belong to received opinions of Catholic schools of theology. There were good reasons for a purely passive toleration for a time. But none for the indefinite continuance of such toleration. The silence of an œcumenical council, viewing all the events which had occurred during the past two centuries, would have given the advocates of Gallicanism a plausible pretext to claim for it a positive toleration, a recognition of its real and solid probability. Moreover, it was reviving under a new and more dangerous form; numbers of good and loyal Catholics were beginning to go astray after a so-called Catholic liberalism, and a clique of secret traitors was plotting a revolt against the Holy See, disguised under the ambiguities and reservations of Gallicanism. Error, though it may lie dormant and not show its dangerous character for a time, sooner or later works out the conclusions contained in its premises. Gallicanism was an illogical doctrine, containing implicitly the denial of the papal supremacy. It was necessary, therefore, to condemn it, and to define the truth. Those who gave up their opinions in obedience to the decree of the Vatican acted like Catholics, and like reasonable and consistent men. As Catholics, they were bound to obey a divine authority. As reasonable men, they were bound to abandon an opinion which they had embraced on merely probable grounds, as soon as the certain truth was made known to them.
Moreover, the malcontents were taught from their childhood, and some of them have themselves taught, as authors and professors, the infallibility of œcumenical councils as a doctrine of the Catholic faith. They have renounced, abjured, and trampled on that faith, by rebelling against the Council of the Vatican, and bidding defiance to the authority of their bishops and of the Pope. They are justly excommunicated. The anathema of the church has smitten them, and they are doomed to wither and die, and go into oblivion. As for the Catholic Church and her docile children, they have made a great act of faith which has had a most salutary effect already, in strengthening the habit of divine faith, and in illuminating the intellect with the knowledge of the truth. Its salutary effects in the future will be still greater. There was never a time when the continuous and immediate exercise of the supreme teaching authority of the Vicar of Christ was so necessary and so easy as the present critical, momentous period. Never a time when it was so necessary for all the faithful to place an absolute and boundless confidence in the chair of Peter. God has made known to all men, as a truth of his divine revelation, the infallibility of that chair, and of his august Vicar who sits in it. This truth is equally certain with the greatest mysteries of the faith, the Trinity and the Incarnation. This chair of Peter can neither be deceived nor deceive us, for its doctrine rests on the veracity of the Holy Spirit, the author of truth, and in believing and obeying it we believe and obey Almighty God.