Papal Infallibility - Conditions For Teachings Being Declared Infallible

Conditions For Teachings Being Declared Infallible

Statements by a pope which exercise papal infallibility are referred to as "solemn papal definitions" or ex cathedra teachings. Also considered infallible are the teachings of the whole body of bishops of the Church, especially but not only in an ecumenical council (see Infallibility of the Church).

According to the teaching of the First Vatican Council and Catholic tradition, the conditions required for ex cathedra papal teaching are as follows:

1. "the Roman Pontiff"
2. "speaks ex cathedra" ("that is, when in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority"....)
3. "he defines"
4. "that a doctrine concerning faith or morals"
5. "must be held by the whole Church" (Pastor Aeternus, chap. 4)

For a teaching by a pope or ecumenical council to be recognized as infallible, the teaching must be a decision of the supreme teaching authority of the Church (pope or College of Bishops); it must concern a doctrine of faith or morals; it must bind the universal Church; and it must be proposed as something to be held firmly and immutably. The terminology of a definitive decree will usually make clear that this last condition is fulfilled, as through a formula such as "By the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by Our own authority, We declare, pronounce and define the doctrine . . . to be revealed by God and as such to be firmly and immutably held by all the faithful", or through an accompanying anathema stating that anyone who deliberately dissents is outside the Catholic Church.

For example, in 1950, with Munificentissimus Deus, Pope Pius XII's infallible definition regarding the Assumption of Mary, there are attached these words:

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.

In July 2005 Pope Benedict XVI stated during an impromptu address to priests in Aosta that: "The Pope is not an oracle; he is infallible in very rare situations, as we know". His predecessor Pope John XXIII once remarked: "I am only infallible if I speak infallibly but I shall never do that, so I am not infallible". A doctrine proposed by a pope as his own opinion, not solemnly proclaimed as a doctrine of the Church, may be rejected as false, even if it is on a matter of faith and morals, and even more any view he expresses on other matters. A well-known example of a personal opinion on a matter of faith and morals that was taught by a pope but rejected by the Church is the view that Pope John XXII expressed on when the dead can reach the beatific vision. The limitation on the pope's infallibility "on other matters" is frequently illustrated by Cardinal James Gibbons's recounting how the pope mistakenly called him Jibbons.

In general, Catholic theologians hold that the canonizations of saints by a pope are infallible teaching that the persons canonized are definitely in heaven with God.