Is the Pope infallible?

The idea that the Pope claims to be able to do no wrong is one which lingers in the minds of many casual observers, but that is a misleadingly broad perception

Well, yes and no.

One of the “facts” that the general public often cites about the papacy (if pressed) is that the Pope claims to be infallible. Taken at face value, this can seem absurd: he is, after all, only a man, often an elderly man, and the idea that by definition nothing he does can be wrong is a logical nonsense. It is also often used as a demonstration of the hierarchical, autocratic nature of the Roman Catholic Church, some seeing the Pope as a theocrat and therefore liable to considered alongside other theocracies (which rarely have a good reputation, and, yes, I’m looking at you, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and you, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan).

[I’m aware that some readers will be practising Roman Catholics, for whom this is not only second nature but a statement of the bleedin’ obvious. Feel free to take the next 10 minutes off. My mission, my compulsion, my sickness is to inform, and sometimes that means a variable speed to make sure everyone ends up at the same destination.]

The truth is, as so often in life, rather more complicated than that. Infallibility is a spiritual gift given by Christ to the Church; the Pope, in the words of the Catechism, enjoys “full, supreme, and universal power over the whole Church, a power which he can always exercise unhindered”, and he therefore has the authority to exercise this gift and pronounce infallibly on matters of doctrine.

That said, there are a various conditions attached to the exercise of infallibility. If the Holy Father says a cup of coffee is the best coffee in the world, it does not make it true (I jest but that is the sort of reductio ad absurdum which is tempting for sceptics when touching on infallibility). For a statement to be regarded as infallible, it must be pronounced by the Pope ex cathedra, literally “from the chair” which in this case means the Throne of St Peter which he occupies as Bishop of Rome. More generally, it indicates that the pronouncement must be made in his capacity as Pope and in the execution of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, by virtue of his apostolic authority which has been transmitted from the Apostles during Christ’s lifetime to the current pontiff.

(Well, all right, there isn’t currently a pontiff, and the papacy is sede vacante until Francis’s successor is chosen by the College of Cardinals. The Cardinal Camerlengo, Kevin Cardinal Farrell, is acting sovereign of the Vatican City and the government of the Catholic Church is in the collective hands of the College of Cardinals, though in a very limited, ad interim sense. Most offices in the Curia fall vacant at the Pope’s death, with the exceptions of the Camerlengo himself, the Major Penitentiary (Angelo Cardinal De Donatis), the Archpriest of St Peter’s Basilica (Mauro Cardinal Gambetti), the Papal Almoner and the Vicars General of the Diocese of Rome (Baldassare Cardinal Reina) and of the Vatican City (currently also held by Cardinal Gambetti. Interesting to see what the Church regards as essential staff only.)

In addition, for a papal pronouncement to be regarded as infallible, it must concern faith or morals, and apply to the whole Church. This last criterion is usually fulfilled by a formula of words at the end of the decree which make clear its universal application. For example, an apostolic constitution issued by Pius XII in 1950 concludes:

Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which We have defined, let him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.

The definitions, requirements and limitations around papal infallibility were codified at the First Vatican Council, held between December 1869 and September 1870 under the papacy of Pius IX. A constitution entitled Pastor aeternus was issued in July 1870 which set out St Peter’s apostolic primacy, the continuation of that primacy in the office of Pope and papal supremacy over the Church, as well as the doctrine of infallibility.

We teach and define that it is a dogma divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church, irreformable.

It argued, however, that it was merely reinforcing and refining a doctrine which dated back at least to the mediaeval papacy and had been commonly accepted at the time of the Counter-Reformation. Some have pointed to the Quaestiones de perfectione evangelica of the French Franciscan theologian Peter John Olivi, writing around 1280, while others have placed more importance on the work of Guido Terrena, a Catalan canon lawyer and scholastic theologian, who had been a leading infallibilist at the Curia under Pope John XXII (1316-34). While it is impossible to pinpoint the origin of the doctrine, it is clear that some kind of belief that the Pope could speak with the authority of St Peter and not open to challenge was in common currency in the mediaeval Church.

Oddly, for an organisation as bureaucratic as the Roman Catholic Church, there is no official, comprehensive list of infallible pronouncements. One school of thought holds that they are very rare. Two constitutions are widely regarded as having been made under the doctrine of infallibility: Ineffabilis Deus (1854), in which Pius IX affirmed the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, and Munificentissimus Deus (1950), mentioned above, issued by Pius XII and concerning the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Some historians cite other pronouncements, like St Leo I’s Tome to Archbishop Flavian of Constantinople in AD 449 which states that Christ has two natures, both fully human and fully divine; or Cum occasione (1653), a bull of Pope Innocent X which condemns as heretical five propositions by Cornelius Jansen.

In 1998, St John Paul II issued a constitution, Ad tuendam fidem, to which the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the successor to the Roman Inquisition and responsible for religious discipline, attached a commentary clarifying the three levels of authority of the Church’s teachings. It listed a number of infallible pronouncements but stressed that the list was not exhaustive; in bad news for liberals, among the doctrines it classed as infallible were the 1995 encyclical of St John Paul II Evangelium vitae, which reiterated the sanctity of human life and the Church’s opposition to murder, abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment; and the apostolic letter of 1994 Ordinatio sacerdotalis, which pronounced that “the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to be definitively held by all the Church’s faithful”. For anyone too convinced of the late Pope Francis’s supposed liberalism, he twice confirmed St John Paul’s position on female ordination.

The headline here is that the Pope can under specific circumstances make pronouncements on doctrine which are not able to be challenged, or at least, not challenged without effectively denying the authority of the Church as an institution. I reiterate my frequent caution that I don’t have a dog in this fight, being neither a Roman Catholic nor a Christian (nor, for that matter, a theist of any kind). I do, however, have a bemused fascination, occasionally crossing into frustration, with those who expect institutions to which they belong to be other than they are. The Roman Catholic Church has never been a democracy of any kind, and one of its distinctive characteristics is the importance of authority, both papal authority and the authority of tradition. There is no sola scriptura in the Roman Church, and, ironically, the Catholic Church would argue against adherence only to what is prescribed in the Bible on the grounds that such adherence is not… prescribed in the Bible. As Dei verbum, promulgated by Pope Paul VI at the Second Vatican Council in 1965, states clearly:

It is not from Sacred Scripture alone that the Church draws her certainty about everything which has been revealed. Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.

However, obedience, authority and the power of tradition are subjects for another day, I think.